LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Shell', $ % 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION 



FliOM TUii 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 



OP THE 



REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 



ARRANGED UNDER THE SUBJECTS WHICH 
THEY ILLUSTRATE. 



BY 

AN AMERICAN CLERGYMAN. 



"Exuberant Diction and Poetic Imagery. 



JUL 28 ib& r 



iSlOfWA, 



New York: 
FUNK & WAGNALLS, PUBLISHEES, 

10 and 12 Dey Street. 

1882. 




^v 



6 



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Copyright, 1882, 
By FUNK & WAGNALLS 



PREFACE. 

The London Times, in 1860, said : " Dr. Guthrie is the most eloquent 
orator in Europe. ' ' The celebrated Dr. Candlish, in an address to the 
General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, in May, 1862, said : 
" Dr. Guthrie's genius has long since placed him at the head of all the 
gifted and popular preachers of our day. ' ' The late Dr. James W. Alex- 
ander, one of the most fastidious of critics, tells us that he pushed into 
Dr. Guthrie's church through a crowd that nearly tore his coat from his 
shoulders in the struggle. He says : " I listened to him for fifty min- 
utes ; but they passed like nothing. There was an overflowing unction 
of passion and compassion which would carry home even one of my ser- 
mons : conceive what it was with Guthrie's exuberant diction and poetic 
imagery." 

Dr. Guthrie's sermons, like the addresses of most of the great masters 
of eloquence in all ages, abounded in picturesque similes ; and, indeed, 
few have equalled him either in the number or in the beauty and force 
of the illustrations employed. There is the same exuberance of graphic 
similitudes in the books which he wrote after the state of his health com- 
pelled him to restrict his pulpit labors ; and the numerous volumes which 
bear his name form a perfect storehouse of anecdotes, comparisons, ex- 
amples and incidents, This book contains what we conceive to be the 
choicest of his illustrations arranged under the subjects which they 
illustrate. 

It has been well said that arguments are the pillars and buttresses 
which support the building, but illustrations are the windows which let 
in the light. There was abundance of light when Dr. Guthrie preached 
or wrote, and it would be well if ministers, and religious teachers gener- 
ally, imitated him. We commend to them not only his example but his 
testimony. He says : ' ' By awakening and gratifying the imagination, 
the truth finds its way more readily to the heart, and makes a deeper 
impression on the memory. The story, like a float, keeps it from sink- 
ing ; like a nail, fastens it in the mind ; like the feathers of an arrow, 
makes it strike, and, like the barb, makes it stick." 



GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 



ACTIVITY— CHRISTIAN. 

1. All Christians to be Coworkers with God. 

(1.) Think not that the noble work of being fellow laborers with God is 
the exclusive privilege of the clergy, nor stand back as if you had neither 
right nor call to set to your hand. What although in the church you hold 
no rank ? No more does the private who wears neither stripes on his 
arm nor epaulettes on his shoulder ; but although a private, may he not 
die for the colors which it is not his privilege to carry ? If it is not 
his business to train recruits, it is his business and shall be his reward 
to enlist them. Now to this office, to recruit the ranks of the cross, the 
Gospel calls you — calls all — calls the meanest soldier in the army of 
the faith. 

2. To whom the Working Christian Allies Himself. 

(2.) Working, toiling, enduring, we ally ourselves to the saints in 
glory, the blessed dead — who die in the Lord, and whose works do follow 
them ; to angels also, who are ministering spirits sent forth to minister 
to them who are heirs of salvation ; to Jesus also, who entered on 
his Father's business at an early age, and to the last hour, when they 
nailed His feet to the cross, went about doing good ; to God himself, of 
whose works in creating angels, kindling suns, calling worlds into being, 
directing the whole complicated machinery of providence and of grace, 
Jesus said, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." 

3. Work Our Main Vocation. 

(3.) To watch, to fight, with steady front to meet and repel tempta- 
tion — in other words to do no evil, is, however, though an important 
part, but one, and not the most important part of Christian work. The 
church of the living God bears no resemblance to those communities 
of ants where a certain number of these curious insects form a sort of 
standing army, and have no other duties but to defend and battle for 
the commonwealth ; the building, and provisioning, and other duties of 



GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 



ACTIVITY— CHRISTIAN. 

1. All Christians to be Coworkers with God. 

(1 . ) Think not that the noble work of being fellow laborers with God is 
the exclusive privilege of the clergy, nor stand back as if yon had neither 
right nor call to set to your hand. What although in the church you hold 
no rank ? No more does the private who wears neither stripes on his 
arm nor epaulettes on his shoulder ; but although a private, may he not 
die for the colors which it is not his privilege to carry ? If it is not 
his business to train recruits, it is his business and shall be his reward 
to enlist them. Now to this office, to recruit the ranks of the cross, the 
Gospel calls you — calls all — calls the meanest soldier in the army of 
the faith. 

2. To whom the Working Christian Allies Himself. 

(2.) Working, toiling, enduring, we ally ourselves to the saints in 
glory, the blessed dead — who die in the Lord, and whose works do follow 
them ; to angels also, who are ministering spirits sent forth to minister 
to them who are heirs of salvation ; to Jesus also, who entered on 
his Father's business at an early age, and to the last hour, when they 
nailed His feet to the cross, went about doing good ; to God himself, of 
whose works in creating angels, kindling suns, calling worlds into being, 
directing the whole complicated machinery of providence and of grace, 
Jesus said, ' ' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. ' ' 

3. Work Our Main Vocation. 

(3.) To watch, to fight, with steady front to meet and repel tempta- 
tion — in other words to do no evil, is, however, though an important 
part, but one, and not the most important part of Christian work. The 
church of the living God bears no resemblance to those communities 
of ants where a certain number of these curious insects form a sort of 
standing army, and have no other duties but to defend and battle for 
the commonwealth ; the building, and provisioning, and other duties of 



6 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

the ant-hill belonging to others, and not to them. Nor, to take an illus- 
tration from the arrangements of human society, does Christ's kingdom 
resemble this or that of any neighboring sovereign, where the military, 
wearing a distinct garb and exempted from those productive labors 
whereby others support themselves and add to the wealth of the country, 
form a distinct order of the community. The type of a Christian is 
seen, not in lands where citizens and soldiers, working and fighting 
men, form different classes ; but rather in those troubled regions of the 
East, where the husbandman, constantly exposed to the attack of mur- 
derers and robbers, ploughs the soil with a carbine slung at his back, or 
a sword dangling at his side. 

4. A Characteristic of the True Christian. 

(4.) There may be the appearance of life, but certainly not its presence, 
where there is no activity ; as they rightly concluded who, sailing in 
Arctic seas, fell in with a ship, for long years imprisoned in the ice, and 
looked in its cabin on a strange, appalling, weird-like scene. Fifty years 
had come and gone since living voice or step had sounded there, yet 
all the crew were there. They lay in couches on the floor, each attired 
in the dress and presenting the form and flesh of life ; while their cap- 
tain sat by the cabin table, pen in hand, and the log spread out be- 
fore him. The spectators of so strange a sight, with mingled feel- 
ings of doubt and terror, shouted ; but no response came back. Nor 
crew nor captain stirred. All were dead, and had been corpses for half 
a century — the frosts that killed preserving them. Life-like as he 
looked who bent over the table with a pen in his fingers and the paper 
before him, in which, the last survivor, he had recorded their sufferings, 
he also was dead ; as they knew on seeing him sit unmoved by their 
shouts ; his eyes retaining their glassy stare, and his form its fixed and 
frozen posture. The activity that thus marks all other kinds of life is 
characteristic of the Christian's. Sometimes distinguished by heroic 
daring, and prodigal of noble deeds, at all times it is a life of doing. 

5. All the Members of the Body Formed for Work. 

(5.) This beautifully drawn analogy between the members of Christ's 
body and those of our material frame teaches many lessons ; and among 
these, not the least important is this, that we become members of His 
body not for ornament merely, nor even for our salvation and enjoyment 
only, but also for work. Activity is the universal characteristic of all 
life, human and Divine. God himself offers no exception to this rule : 
" My Father worketh hitherto," says Jesus, " and I work :" nor, on 
the other hand, does it find an exception even in those animals or plants 
that stand lowest in the scale of creation. But take an example from 



ACTIVITY— CHRISTIAN. 7 

our own bodies. In what respect are they encumbered with useless or 
idle members ? The hands are formed to work, the feet to walk, the 
eyes to look, the ears to listen, the tongue to taste, the teeth to grind, and 
the digestive organs to extract nourishment from our food, the lungs to 
breathe, the brain to feel and think, and the heart — the first to live and 
the last to die, and greatest worker of all — to beat by night and day 
without a pause ; supplying the waste of every organ, and sending its 
tide of blood to the extremities of the body. 

6. The Men of Worth the Men of Work. 

(6.) Christ judges them to be the men of worth who are the men of 
work. Be thy life then devoted to His service. Now for the work, here- 
after for the wages ; earth for the cross, heaven for the crown. Go thy 
way, assured that there is not a prayer you offer, nor a word you speak, 
nor a foot you walk, nor a tear you shed, nor a hand you hold out to the 
perishing, nor a warning you give to the careless, nor a wretched child 
you pluck from the streets, nor a visit paid to the widow or fatherless, 
nor a loaf of bread you lay on a poor man's table, that there is nothing 
you do for the love of God and man, but is faithfully registered in the 
chronicles of the kingdom, and shall be publicly read that day when 
Jesus, calling yon up perhaps from a post as mean as Mordecai's, shall 
crown your brows before an assembled world, saying, Thus it shall be 
done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor. 

7. A Useful and Holy Life is the only Life of Well-Doing. 

(7.) A busy, useful, holy life, and none other, is a life of well-doing ; is 
a noble life, though passed in a cottage ; is a happy one, though its path 
be rough and thorny. Such a life was Paul's — -he declared himself ready 
gladly to spend and to be spent for Christ. Such a life was Dorcas' 
— she employed her fingers making clothes for the poor, and, unlike 
many who die leaving none to miss them, had a crowd of widows to weep 
by her bier. Such a life was Job's, who, while humbling himself in 
the dust before God, stood erect before the world, in these noble terms 
to describe and justify his character, " When the ear heard me then it 
blessed me, and when the eye saw me it gave witness to me, because I 
delivered the poor that cried, the fatherless, and him that had none to 
help him ; the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me : 
and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness 
and it clothed me ; my judgment was as a robe and diadem. I was eyes 
to the blind, and feet was I to the lame ; I was a father to the poor." 
And, obscuring all others, as does the sun the stars by its superior 
lustre, such a life was His who, our pattern and propitiation both, calls 
us by his example, as by his word, to well-doing — saying, as he points 



8 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

to the crown glittering on the top of a cross, If any man will be my 
disciple, let him deny himself daily, take up his cross, and follow me. 

8. Praying and Working for Others. 

(S.) Let us pity the world ; and endeavor, praying and working, so to 
shine that others, seeing our good works, may be guided to heaven, and 
glorify our Father there — eacb such a light, or rather lighthouse, as one of 
England's bold engineers raised on the reef which owed its dreaded name 
to the waters that eddied and boiled around it. To save our seamen 
from a water} 7 grave, their wives from widowhood, their little ones from 
the miseries and crimes of neglected orphanage, what dangers he faced ! 
— as on that night when, hurrying on deck, he saw white breakers all 
around, and above their roar and the shrieks of the tempest heard the 
helmsman cry, For God's sake, heave hard at that rope, if you mean to 
save your lives ! — and the vessel, with scrimp room to turn, obeyed her 
helm and rounded off. Example to all who seek a yet higher object — 
to save men's souls from ignorance, and vice, and hell — what anxieties 
he felt to bring his enterprise to a happy issue ! On the Hoe headland, 
where Drake first saw Spain's proud Armada, alone in the gray of the 
morning, after a tempestuous night, he might be seen looking out, with 
telescope at his eye, over a raging sea, for his yet unfinished structure ; 
and heard saying, as a tall white pillar of spray suddenly gleaming on 
the far horizon revealed his work and removed his fears, Thank God, it 
stands ! Nor do we fear that they who work for God, and Christ, and 
the good of men, will imitate Smeaton in giving the glory where the 
glory is due — inscribing on their lives the words which, as the last work 
of the mason's chisel, he had cut on that monument of his genius and 
humanity, Laus Deo — praise to God ! 



AFFLICTIONS. 

1. Troubles Turned to Blessings. 

(9.) If the prodigal had not starved by the swine troughs, he had 
never been regaled at his father's table. If Jonah had not been tossed 
on the sea, and also tossed into it to be whelmed in darkness and the 
depths,hehad never broken the peace, and, bringing them to repentance, 
saved the people of Nineveh. If the widow of Zarepthah had not looked 
with horror-stricken eyes on an empty barrel, she had never met the 
Prophet whom she brought to her house to fill it. If the crimes of the 
thief had not brought him to the cross, he might never have been 
brought to Christ. It is by a blow that many in the first instance are 



AFFLICTIONS. 9 

brought to their knees ; nor do some ever become rich till misfortunes 
make them poor. 

2. Those xolio are without Chastisement. 

(10. ) They are bastards, not sons, that grow up without chastisement — 
they are common, not precious stones, that escape the lapidary's wheel — 
they are wild, not garden trees, that never bleed beneath the pruning- 
knife. " Whom God loveth," says the Apostle, " He chasteneth, and 
scourgeth every son that He receiveth." 

3. No Plain Sailing to Heaven. 

(11.) I do not say that it is plain sailing to heaven. I do not say but 
that the duty that we owe to Christ may and shall expose us to what 
the world accounts and what flesh and blood feel to be pain. Be it 
so ! What pains Jesus endured, what sacrifices He submitted to for us ! 
Beside, how should it make us take suffering joyfully to think that it 
is those who are crucified with Him on earth that shall be crowned with 
him in heaven. None else. They win in this game that lose. They 
live in this warfare that die. If we be dead with him, we shall also live 
with him ; if we suffer, we shall also reign with him. He that loseth 
his life shall find it. 

4. Afflictions cannot Remove Sin. 

(12.) I have seen the characters of the writing remain on paper that the 
flames had turned into a film of buoyant coal ; I have seen the thread 
that had passed through the fire retain, in its cold gray ashes, the twist 
which it had got in spinning ; I have found every shivered splinter of 
the flint as hard as the unbroken stone : and, let trials come, in provi- 
dence, sharp as the fire and ponderous as the crushing hammer, unless 
God send with these something else than these, bruised, broken, bleed- 
ing as the heart may be, it remains the same. 



5. Unsanctijied 

(13.) This internal and universal defilement is one which neither sor- 
rows nor sufferings can remove. God, in a passage which he had already 
quoted, says, " Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much 
soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me;" sorrows have no more 
virtue than soap, tears than nitre here. Trust not, therefore, in any 
merely unsanctified afflictions, as if these could permanently and really 
change the true character of the heart. 

6. Effect of Overwhelming Trials. 
(14.) A singular phenomenon has sometimes been noticed at sea. In a 



10 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

gale, when the storm, increasing in violence, has at length risen into a 
hurricane, the force of the wind has been observed to actually beat down 
the waves, producing a temporary and comparative calm ; and similar is 
the effect occasionally produced by awful and overwhelming trials — 
these, by their very power and pressure on the heart, abating both 
the violence and the expression of its feelings. But what is equally 
remarkable and still more observable in trial is, that we can more easily 
bear a heavy blow from God's hand than alight one from man's. Con- 
scious of sin, we feel that He has a right to afflict, where man has none. 

7. Afflictions are of Short Duration. 

(15.) I knew a precious saint of God who was often cast into the fur- 
nace, but always, like real gold, to shine the brighter for the fire ; and 
who, having now left her sorrows all behind her, has joined the company 
of whom the angel said, " These are they which came out of great trib- 
ulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood 
of the Lamb ; therefore," in the front rank as the highest peers of 
heaven, " are they before the throne of God. ' ' The courage with which 
she met adversity — one trial after another, shock succeeding shock, billow 
bursting on the back of billow — was as remarkable as the strength with 
which, though a bruised reed, she seemed to bear it. Where did her 
great strength lie ? The grand secret of that serene demeanor and un- 
complaining patience was, no doubt, a sense of the Divine favor. The 
peace of God kept her heart and mind through Jesus Christ. Yet her 
sorrows found a solace, life's bitterest hour a sweetness, also, in the 
simple couplet that was often on her lips — 

' ' Come what, come may : 

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day." 

8. Trials Purify God's People. 

(16.) While silver resists the influences that tarnish the baser metals, 
gold is absolutely indestructible — resisting the action of fire itself. Ex- 
pose water to fire, and it dissolves in vapor ; wood, and it vanishes in 
smoke and flame, leaving but gray ashes behind ; iron, and it is converted 
into rust : but fire may play on gold for a thousand years without de- 
priving it of a degree of its lustre or an atom of its weight Beautiful 
emblem of the saints of God, gold cannot perish — their trials, like the 
action of fire on this precious metal, but purifying what they cannot de- 
stroy. 

9. Christians Bend to the Storm, not Resist it. 

(17.) Sweetly submissive to the will of God, shall it not fare with us as 
with the pliant reeds that love the hollows and fringe the margin of the 



AMBITION. 11 

lake, and bending to the blast, not resisting it, raise their heads anew, 
unharmed by the storm that has snapped the mountain pine, and rent 
the hearts of oak asunder ? The joy of the Lord is our strength. 

10. Patient Endurance of Trials. 

(18.) Many of Paul's expressions have a warlike ring, and suggest to 
our fancy soldiers who occupy some of those trying positions which the 
chances of war often call them bravely, and sternly, to hold. He says, 
for example, " Having done all, stand." Now, there is nothing, as I 
am told and believe, which puts the firmness of men to so severe a test 
as that. It requires no great courage to play the soldier when, in firing 
or charging, advancing or retreating, they are engaged in the active 
duties of the field ; but calmly to hold a position where, unsustained 
by excitement — allowed neither to fight, nor advance, nor retire — they 
have to stand exposed to the shot that plunges into their ranks, making 
bloody gaps they have nothing to do but fill up, this tries the mettle 
of the bravest men. 

(19. ) To such trials God sometimes puts his chosen and beloved people. 
After having done everything to protect themselves from the assaults 
of the Tempter, to defend their reputation, their purity, or peace, duty 
to God and his cause, duty to themselves or others, requires them to do 
nothing more than just hold their post ; maintain their position ; 
patiently endure wrongs they might, but are not allowed to, repel ; and 
bear without complaint trials or temptations which they cannot avoid, 
and are not allowed to escape from. 



AMBITION. 

1. A Holy Ambition. 

(20.) There are all manner of ways by which men rise in the world. 
Some, flung up by national convulsions, rise like the fire stones shot 
from a volcano's mouth ; they flare for a little, and then are lost in 
night. Some, like sea-weed or an empty shell, are thrown up by the 
wave of popular agitation, only by its reflux to be swept back again into 
•oblivion. Some rise in times of trouble and of turmoil, like the dust 
•and light straws of the whirlwind ; the lighter they are the more sure 
are they to rise. Some ascend by the foul and slippery path of crime, 
rising on other men's shoulders, and building dishonest fortunes on hon- 
est men's ruin. While some, being, amid all the mysteries of Provi- 
-dence, witnesses that there is a just God upon earth, illustrate the adage 



U OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

of the world, " Honesty is the best policy," and the still better saying 
of Scripture, " Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of 
the life that now is, and of that which is to come." But there is no 
rising so interesting to study, or by those who are fired with a holy am- 
bition, so blessed to emulate, as that of a sinner into a saint — of a soul 
to glory. 



ATHEISM. 

1. The Atheist' s Avowed Belief. 

(21.) A rude heap of bricks shot from a cart upon the ground was- 
never seen to arrange itself into the doors, stairs, chambers, and chim- 
neys of a house. The dust and filings on a brass-founder's table has 
never been known to form themselves into the wheels and mechanism of 
a watch. The types loosely flung from the founder's mould never yet 
fell into the form of a poem, such as Homer, or Dante, or Milton w r ould 
have constructed. The rudest hut of Bushmen, the Indian's simple 
canoe, fashioned by fire from a forest tree, the plainest clay urn, in 
which savage affection had enshrined the ashes of the dead, were never 
supposed to owe their form to the hands of chance. Yet this man be- 
lieved (if it is possible to think so) that nature's magnificent temple was 
built without an architect, her flowers of glorious beauty were colored 
without a painter, and her intricate, complicated, but perfect machinery 
constructed without an intelligent mind. 

2. A Crushing Answer. 

(22.) That man gave the Atheist a crushing answer, who told him 
that the very feather with which he penned the words, " There is no 
God," refuted the audacious lie. 

3. Disbelief in the Existence of Atheism. 

(23.) The doctrine of the being of a God. I do not need to open the 
Bible to learn that. It is enough that I open my eyes, and turn them 
on that great book of nature, where it is legibly written, clearly revealed 
in every page. God ! that word may be read in the stars and on the 
face of the sun ; it is painted on every flower, traced on every leaf, en- 
graven on every rock ; it is whispered by the winds, sounded forth by 
the billows of ocean, and may be heard by the dullest ear in the long- 
rolling thunder. I believe in the existence of a God, but not in the ex- 
istence of an atheist ; or that any man is so, who can be considered in, 
his sound and sober senses. 



BEAUTY. 13 

4. The Atheistic Poet on the JEgean Sea. 

(24.) There was a celebrated poet, who was an atheist — or at least 
professed to be so. According to him there was no God — the belief in 
a God was a delusion, prayer a base superstition, and religion but the 
iron fetters of a rapacious priesthood. So he held when sailing over the 
unruffled surface of the ^Egean Sea. But the scene changed ; and, 
with the scene, his creed. The heavens began to scowl on him ; and the 
deep uttered an angry voice, and, as if in astonishment at this God- 
denying man, " lifted up his hands on high." The storm increased until 
the ship became unmanageable. She drifted before the tempest. The 
terrible cry, '' breakers ahead' !" was soon heard ; and how they tremble 
to see death seated on the horrid reef — waiting for his prey ! A few 
moments more, and the crash comes. They are whelmed in the devour- 
ing sea ? No. They were saved by a singular providence. Like appre- 
hended evils, which, in a Christian's experience, prove to be blessings, 
the wave, which flung them forward on the horrid reef, came on in such 
mountain volume as to bear and float them over into the safety of deep 
and ample sea-room. But ere that happened, a companion of the atheist 
— who, seated on the prow, had been taking his last regretful look of 
heaven and earth, sea and sky — turned his eyes down upon the deck, 
and there, among papists, who told their beads and cried to the virgin, 
he saw the atheist prostrated with fear. The tempest had blown away 
his fine-spun speculations like so many cobwebs ; and he was on his 
knees, imploring God for mercy. 



BEAUTY. 

1. Personal Beauty. 

(25.) I have found a kind, gentle, and most loving heart under a 
rough exterior, reminding me of the milk and meat stored up within 
the cocoanut's dry, hard, husky shell. On the other hand, look at 
Absalom ! What winning manners, what grace and beauty, how much 
of all that in form and features pleases the eye and ministers to the 
pride of life, are united in that man to the greatest moral baseness ! as 
if God would show us in how little esteem he holds what he threw away 
on so bad a man ; as if he intended to rebuke the silly vanity which 
worships at a mirror, and feeds on charms that shall feed the worms of 
the grave. Nor is his the only case where a fair form has lodged a foul 
heart, and crimes of treachery and murder have stained the hands of 
beauty. 



U GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

2. No Sin in Beauty. 

(26.) I will yield to no man in a high and just admiration of the prin- 
ciples, the piety, the energy, the sagacity, and the heroic courage of the 
Scottish Reformers. Events have justified almost everything for which 
they were once condemned. Yet I cannot but think that in their devout 
abhorrence of a sensuous and formal religion, they somewhat overlooked 
the aid a spiritual worship may receive from forms, if these are in har- 
mony with a devout mind and the apostolic rule, " Let all things be 
done decently and in order." We sympathize with the zeal with which 
they stripped the church of meretricious ornaments ; but they might 
have substituted for the gorgeous vestments and heathenish trappings of 
popery what would have seemed in some respects a less scanty and mean 
attire. There is no sin in beauty, nor holiness in ugliness. God adorns 
all his works, painting even the flowers of the field, and bathing their 
leaves in delicious fragrance. And why then need it have been thought 
almost a sin to introduce music into his service that gratified the ear, or 
meet for his worship but within the cold bare walls of a mean and naked 
edifice ? Many things, indeed, have been unjustly laid to the charge of 
our fathers. Knox and his coadjutors were not the rude, uncultivated 
men their enemies represented them, and some, giving too ready credence 
to popish lies, believed them to have been. It is not to cast blame on 
them, but to illustrate our proneness to pass to extremes, that I have 
touched a small fault — one it is easy to extenuate. For what surgeon so 
skilful as to remove a monstrous excrescence without his knife taking 
some flesh along with it ? or what vast tree, the growth of centuries, was 
ever uprooted but it injured the green sward, and tore up some good 
soil in the meshes of its gigantic roots ? 

3. Beauty a Good Gift of God. 

(27.) Beauty, no doubt, is always a fading charm, and to its envied 
possessor, in many cases a fatal one. Yet it is a good gift of God ; 
and, whether found in human beings, or in the plumes of a bird, the 
colors of a flower, or the glowing tints of an evening sky, is a source of 
innocent pleasure ; nor can it be wrong in a Sunday magazine to notice 
that which men inspired of the Holy Ghost not unfrequently mention. 
They tell us, for instance, that " Rachel was beautiful," and that 
" Esther was fair and beautiful." They celebrate the charms of Abi- 
gail ; and, not confining their remarks to female beauty, they tell us 
that he whose appearance won the hearts of the maids of Israel, and 
whose brave battle with the giant formed the burden of their songs, 
" was of a beautiful countenance." What David gave to Absalom, his 
guilty and unhappy son, he probably inherited from his own mother. 



BENEVOLENCE. 15 

Any way, it is plain from Scripture that while some races are almost 
hideous from their ugliness — one of the fruits of sin — the Jewish women 
were remarkable for their personal charms ; and indeed it is alleged that 
some of the finest specimens of female beauty are still found among them. 
This is more than a curious fact. It forms one of those indirect proofs 
of the truth and divinity of the Bible, which, though indirect, are not 
the less but the more valuable. The fountain corresponds with the 
stream : the ancient record with present physiological facts. For it 
would appear from the Bible that Sarah, the mother of these lovely 
women, was perhaps the greatest beauty the painter's art has preserved, 
or poets have sung. Her charms were so remarkable that they dazzled 
the eyes of Egypt ; and so enduring, that at an age whose wrinkles and 
gray hairs make other women venerable, she retained all the bloom and 
loveliness of youth. 



BENEVOLENCE. 

1. Playing at Benevolence. 

(28.) No doubt the Church of Rome, as children play at feasts or 
mimic fights, plays at this thing. I have seen the pope, a mere play- 
actor, entertaining pilgrims at his table, where, divested of triple crown 
and gorgeous robes, he gave each with his own jewelled hand a piece of 
bread and a cup of wine. The ceremony is performed once a year, and 
is nothing but a drama — the time, Holy Week ; the stage, St. Peter's ; 
the actors, the pope and pilgrims ; and the spectators a brilliant assem- 
bly — monarchs, princes, cardinals, priests of all ranks, monks of all 
colors, and a swaying, fashionable crowd met to see him who claims the 
right to put his foot on the neck of kings, go through a mockery of 
Christian lowliness and hospitality. But, while the pope may be said 
to carry out our Lord's instructions in empty mockery, who does it in 
reality ? 

2. Wide Reach of Benevolence. 

(29. ) But though the people and saints of God have the first, they 
have by no means the only claim on our good offices. All mankind are 
bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Unhappily buried with us in 
the ruins of the fall, but also mercifully embraced in the covenant of sal- 
vation, those against whom equally with us Justice closed the gates of 
Eden, but to whom equally with us Mercy opened the door of heaven, 
the lowest savage that roams his forest may address us saying, " Am 
not I a brother ?" nay, the vilest creature that nightly prowls the streets 
for prey, " Am not I a sister?" And — for piety toward God is the 



16 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

true parent of pity toward man — if imbued with the love and spirit of 
Jesus, the' sight of a fellow-creature suffering, and by the mouth of 
every wound imploring help, transforms me into a good Samaritan. 
Nature, as well as grace, has her claims ; and they must adorn the doc- 
trine of God their Saviour, whose benevolence, irrespective of creed, 
color, country, or even character, rises like the sun, and falls like the 
sunshine upon all. 



BIBLE, THE. 

1. The Bible Adapted to all Classes. 

(30.) The oldest, truest, and best of books, this Book, for the rules 
it supplies for this life and the hopes it presents of a better one, is 
adapted to all classes of society ; and should be equally valued by all. 
This was well expressed by two very different, but both impressive, 
scenes. There, in yonder palace where a royal lady, about to leave our 
shores and rise in time to the position of a queen, receives a deputation. 
They have come to offer her in the name of the women of our country 
a parting, marriage gift. It is no costly ornament, fashioned of gold 
and flashing with precious gems — diamonds from Indian mines, or 
pearls from the deep, such as the wealth and willingness of the donors 
could have purchased. A healthy sign of the age, and a noble testi- 
mony to its religious character, the gift is a copy of the Holy Scriptures 
— this, as in long centuries hence it will be told, was the marriage gift 
it was thought worthy of a Christian nation to bestow, and worthy of a 
royal princess to receive. And there also, on yon stormy shore where, 
amid the wreck the night had wrought, and the waves, still thundering 
as they sullenly retire, had left on the beach, lies the naked form of a 
drowned sailor boy. He had stripped for one last, brave fight for life ; 
and wears naught but a handkerchief bound round his cold breast. In- 
sensible to pity, and unawed by the presence of death, those who sought 
the wreck, as vultures swoop down on their prey, rushed on the body, 
and tore away the handkerchief : tore it open, certain that it held within 
its folds gold ; his little fortune ; something very valuable for a man in 
such an hour to say, I'll sink or swim with it. They were right. But 
it was not gold. It was the poor lad's Bible — also a parting gift, and 
the more precious that it was a mother's. 

2. The Bible as a Subject of Study. 

(31.) Now, although over the whole surface of our globe, plants of 
all forms and families seem confusedly scattered, amid this apparent dis- 



BIBLE, THE. 17 

order the eye of science discovers a perfect system in the floral king- 
dom ; and just as — although God has certainly scattered these forms 
over the face of nature without apparent arrangement — there is a botani- 
cal system, so there is as certainly a theological system, although its 
doctrines and duties are not classified in the Bible according to dogmatic 
rules. Does it not appear from this circumstance, that God intended 
his Word to be a subject of study as well as faith, and that man should 
find in its saving pages a field for the exercise of his highest faculties ? 

3. Something in the Bible for Every Person. 

(32.) Our globe floats in an ocean of air, and that ocean descends to 
the bottom of the deepest mine, and also rises to the summit of the 
highest mountain ; it covers continents and seas alike, and as an element 
of universal life is found in all dwellings, and is fitted for men in all 
variety of conditions. So it is with the word of God. Thus, whether 
they dwell in a palace or prison, whether they celebrate a feast or ob- 
serve a fast, whether they are prosperous or unfortunate in business, 
whether they hang rejoicing over a cradle or sit weeping by a coffin, 
whether they enjoy health or lie pining on a bed of sickness, whether 
they are occupied with the things of this world or of the next, whatever 
he the relation in which they stand to others, that of sovereign or sub- 
ject, parent or child, brother or sister, companion or neighbor, bosom 
friend or deadly foe, there are none but will find something in the Bible 
written for them and their case. 

4. Treasures of the Bible. 

(33.) Within the two boards of the poor man's Bible is a greater 
wealth of happiness, of honor, of pleasure, of true peace, than Australia 
hides in the gold of all her mines. That, for example, could not buy 
the pardon of any of the thousand criminals whom a country, weary of 
their crimes, once cast on her distant shores ; but here is what satisfies 
a justice stricter than man's, and procures the forgiveness of sins which 
the stoutest heart may tremble to think of. 

5. Fanciful Resemblances Seen in the Bible. 

(34.) The Eomans, bringing to the invasion of our country tender 
Tecollections of their own, on reaching the top of the hill which looks 
down on the Tay, exclaimed, Behold the Tiber ! And under the influ- 
ence of feelings stronger than fear, more sacred than grief, and loftier 
than patriotism, fancy has created resemblances and seen things in the 
Bible that had no existence other than in a pious imagination. One 
example of that shines in a constellation of southern skies, and another 
©looms in the flowers o ? our conservatories. It was the reverence and 



18 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

love of Jesus Christ in the bosom of the ancient mariner, which, work- 
ing through fancy, when his ship first ploughed the waters of southern 
seas, saw suspended in the heavens and formed of brilliant stars, and 
looking down on the world, the tree on which its Saviour bung ; and it 
was the same piety that discovered in the passion-flower an imitation by 
the hand of nature of the instruments of our Redeemer's torture, and of 
the halo which now crowns his head in glory. And it is the same 
piety which, by a pardonable mistake, has in some instances discerned 
types, symbols, and shadows of Jesus in the Bible, that belong more 
to the regions of fancy than of fact. 

6. The Benefits of Studying the Models of Piety and Virtue found in, 

the Bible. 

(35.) A visit to Italy is the aim of every artist. Ordinary travellers 
crowd its palaces, churches, and galleries, to gratify a common curiosity, 
or enjoy the pleasures their treasures yield to every cultivated mind. 
Artists seek that beautiful land for a higher purpose. To them it is 
what our schools and universities are to the student of languages or of 
science ; and they regard a visit to Italy as such an important, if not 
essential, part of their education, that I have known a sculptor, on emerg- 
ing from the straitened circumstances through which he had risen to 
fame, leave home, wife, and children to go there, and enjoy in mature 
years the benefits which the poverty of his youth denied him. By a 
long, careful, and ardent study of their works, the artist hopes, and not 
without good reason, to catch the spirit of the great masters. Thus he 
seeks to refine his taste ; to form a high standard of excellence ; and to 
acquire an eye and hand whereby to approach if not equal, to equal if 
not surpass, the triumphs of ancient art. And as the artist who repairs 
to Rome, or Florence, to fill his eye with the works of the great masters 
imbibes somewhat of their genius, and learns thereby to excel in sculpt- 
ure, architecture, or painting, the Christian will derive a similar ad- 
vantage from studying those excellent models of piety and virtue which 
are found in the biographies of the Bible. 

7. Facts in Natural History Corroborating the Testimony of Scripture. 

(36.) Forming new fabrics ; discovering new metals ; learning how, 
as in ships, to make iron swim — the sun, as in photographs, to paint 
portraits — the lightning, as in telegraphs, to carry messages — and fire 
and water, as in locomotives, to whirl us along the ground with the 
speed of an eagle's wing — man has, to use the words of Scripture, even 
in our own time, *' found out many inventions." Yet he has not added 
one to the number of our cereals during the last four thousand years. 
He appears in fact to have started on his career with a knowledge of 



BODY, THE. 19 

these ; a knowledge be could have obtained from none but God. He 
it was who taught him the arts of agriculture — what plants to cultivate, 
and how to cultivate them. There is that indeed in the nature of wheat, 
barley, and the other cereals, which goes almost to demonstrate that 
God specially created them for man's use, and originally committed 
them to his care. These plants are unique in two respects — first, unlike 
others, the fruits or roots of which we use for food, tbey are found 
wild nowhere on the face of the whole earth ; and secondly, unlike 
others also, they cannot prolong their existence independent of man, 
without his care and culture. For example, let a field which has been 
sown with wheat, barley, or oats, be abandoned to the course of nature 
— and what happens ? The following year a scanty crop, springing 
from the grain it shed, may rise in thin stalks on the uncultivated soil ; 
but in a few summers more, every vestige of it has vanished ; " nor 
left a wrack behind." A more than curious, this is an important fact. 
It proves that those grains which form his main subsistence cannot 
maintain themselves without the hand and help of man ; and proving 
that, it proves this also, that man started on his career a tiller of the 
ground — no such being as infidels in their hatred of the Bible represent 
him to have been — a naked savage, ignorant alike of arts and letters, 
little raised in intelligence above the wild animals in whose dens he sought 
a home, and of whose prey he sought a share. This fact in Natural 
History corroborates the testimony of Scripture ; and shows us, in fields 
where every stalk stands up a living witness for the truth of the Bible, the 
revelations of God's word visibly written on the face of Nature. 



BODY, THE. 

1. The Christian's Body a Nobler Temple than Solomon's. 

(37.) To say nothing of the divine nobility grace imparts to a soul 
which is stamped anew with the likeness and image of God, how sacred 
and venerable does even this body appear in the eye of piety ! No 
longer a form of animated dust ; no longer the subject of passions 
shared in common with the brutes ; no longer the drudge and slave of 
Mammon, the once " vile body" rises into a temple of the Holy Ghost. 
What an incentive to holiness, to purity of life and conduct, lies in the 
fact that the body of a saint is the temple of God ! — a truer, nobler 
temple than that which Solomon dedicated by his prayers, and Jesus 
consecrated by his presence. 

2. A Shrine of Immortality. 
(38.) In popish cathedral, where the light streamed through painted 



20 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

window, and the organ pealed along lofty aisles, and candles gleamed 
on golden cups and silver crosses, and incense floated in fragrant clouds, 
we have seen the blinded worshipper uncover his head, drop reverently 
on his knees, and raise his awe-struck eye on the imposing spectacle ; 
we have seen him kiss the marble floor, and knew that sooner would he 
be smitten dead upon that floor than be guilty of defiling it. In how 
much more respect, in how much holier veneration, should we hold this 
body ? The shrine of immortality, and a temple dedicated to the Son 
of God, it is consecrated by the presence of the Spirit — a living temple, 
over whose porch the eye of piety reads what the finger of inspiration 
has written — " If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God 
destroy ; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 



CALUMNY. 

1. How to Treat ('alumni/. 

(39.) When suffering from calumny, it is usually the wisest plan to 
follow John Wesley's practice, and, without reply from either tongue 
or pen, to let our life refute it, as he said, " to live it down." The 
lie, the foul and false insinuation, which bad men use to destroy the 
reputation of the good, is like mud. While it is wet, it sticks ; but, 
since to attempt to wash it out often only spreads the stain, it is best to 
leave it alone ; and drying, in a short while it falls off of itself. 



CHRISTIANS. 

1. Narrow-Minded Christians. 

(40.) Some are offensively narrow-minded. Some are so short-sighted 
that they can hardly recognize Christ's own, and therefore their own 
brother, unless he belong to the same church, and remember the Saviour 
at the same table with themselves. They are great upon little things. 
More given to hate the error than love the truth which they see in 
others, their temper is sour and ungenial. I do not assert that they 
have not the eagle-wings which rise to near communion with God, but 
they want that long-sighted eagle-eye which discerns distant objects, 
and embraces in its range of vision a broad and wide expanse. Be ours 
the charity which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 
things, endureth all things ! 



CHRISTIANS. 21 

2. Despondent Christians. 

(41.) Again, while some saints enjoy a clear assurance of their salva- 
tion, and stretching toward heaven, behold the land that is very far off, 
as seamen from their outlook descry the mountain-tops, when their bark 
is ploughing a waste of waters, and yet a long way from land, there are 
other Christians who pass their days in a state of despondency. The 
sun seldom breaks out to cheer them. Their faith has a hard fight with 
their fears. It is little they know of rejoicing in the Lord, and joying 
in the God of their salvation. By help of God's word, their compass, 
they succeed, no doubt, in steering their way to heaven, but it is over a 
troubled sea and under a cloudy sky ; nor are they ever happy enough 
to be altogether delivered from doubt and fear, till fears as well as faith 
are lost in light, and they find themselves safe in glory. 

3. The Emblems of Gocfs People. 

(42.) It is a remarkable fact, that while the baser metals are often 
diffused through the body of the rocks, gold and silver lie in veins — 
collected together in distinct metallic masses. They are in the rocks, 
but not of the rocks. Some believe that there was a time, long gone by, 
when — like the other metals — these lay in intimate union with the mass 
of rock, until, by virtue of some mysterious electric agency, their scat- 
tered atoms were put in motion, and, being made to pass through the 
solid stone, were aggregate in those shining veins, where they now lie 
to the miner's hand. Gold and silver are the emblems of God's people. 
And as by some power in nature God has separated these emblems from 
the base and common earths, even so by the power of his grace he will 
separate all his chosen from a reprobate and rejected world. 

4. Christian Ends Lend Grandeur to the Christian Life. 

(43.) He who lives for the glory of God has an end in view which 
lends dignity to the man and to his life. Bring common iron into 
proper contact with the magnet, it will borrow the strange attractive 
virtue, and itself become magnetic. The merest crystal fragment, that 
has been flung out into the field and trampled on the ground, shines like 
a diamond when sunbeams stoop to kiss it. And who has not seen the 
dullest rain-cloud, when it turned its weeping face to the sun, change 
into glory, and, in the bow that spans it, present to the eyes of age and 
infancy, alike of the philosopher who studies, and of the simple joyous 
child who runs to catch it, the most brilliant and beautiful phenomenon 
in nature ? Thus, from what they look at and come in contact with, 
common things acquire uncommon glory. 

(44.) Live, then, " looking unto Jesus," live for nothing less and 



22 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

nothing lower than God's glory ; and these ends will lend grandeur to 
your life, and shed a holy, heavenly lustre on your station, however 
humble it be. 

5. Christians are not what They must Aim to he. 

(45.) Sin has still more or less power over you, and it should have 
none ; your corruptions have suffered a mortal wound, but they are not 
dead ; your affections rise upward to heaven, yet how much are they 
held back by the things of earth ; though your heart turns to Christ, like 
the compass needle to the pole, how easily is it disturbed, how trem- 
blingly it points to him ; your spirit has wings, yet how short are its 
flights, and how often, like a half-fledged eaglet, has it to return to its 
nest on the Rock of Ages ; your soul is a garden where Christ delights 
to walk when the north and south winds blow, to inhale its spices, yet 
with many lovely flowers, how many vile weeds grow there. With a 
great work to do, and little time to do it, and that little most uncertain, 
there is much need to work, the Spirit aiding, heaven helping us. 

0. Should Follow Jesus. 

(46.) We should certainly attempt always to follow Jesus, to walk as 
he walked, to speak as he spake, to think as he thought, and to mould 
our whole conduct and conversation on the pattern that he hath left us ; 
yet our best attempts will leave us more and more convinced that our 
only hope for redemption, salvation, forgiveness, lies in the mercy of 
the Father and the merits of the Son. Pray for and make sure of an 
interest in these, for even after we have been made new creatures in 
Jesus Christ, the most that we can do — nor that without the aids of the 
Holy Spirit — is to creep along the path which the Saviour walked, and 
leave the mark of our knees where he left the prints of his feet. 

7. The Common Brotherhood of Christians. 

(47.) Rightly understood, the unity of the church is by no means 
incompatible with the existence of different denominations. What are 
they but the branches of a tree which still is one ; one in root, one in 
stem, one in sap, one in flower, and one in fruit. We have one faith, 
one spirit, and one baptism. We are united in Christ ; we meet in that 
centre ; and, like the radii of a circle, the nearer we approach our com- 
mon centre, the nearer we draw to Christ, we shall be the nearer to each 
other. Let us gladly recognize a common brotherhood, and love one 
another, even as Christ loved us. Members of the same family, travellers 
to the same home, called with the same holy calling, let us ever remem- 
ber the words of Joseph to his brethren, See that ye fall not out by the 
way. 



CHRISTIANS. 23 

8. Safe in Christ. 

(48.) This gathering on Melita's shore : — It was a frightful storm ; 
the coast unknown ; the ship grounds in deep water, with nigh three 
hundred souls on board ; the night before, the boats had been cut adrift, 
and now not a boat — if boats could live in such a swell — to save them. 
The swimmers, who strip and plunge into the sea, may perchance reach 
the shore, but none else shall cheat the deep of its prey. Yet, when 
there is not another head among the billows — when the last survivor has 
climbed the beach — they muster ; and soldiers, sailors, and prisoners — 
all are there. Paul got their lives, and not one has gone amissing. 
"" Some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship ;" but, by 
whatever way it came to pass, it did come to pass, as the narrative tells 
— " they escaped all safe to land." Even so shall it be with those of 
whom Jesus says, " I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never 
perish. My Father that gave them me is greater than all, and no man 
is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." 

9. How to Distinguish the Godly from the Ungodly. 

(49.) You may know a sheep from a swine, when both have fallen 
into the same slough, and are, in fact, so bemired, that neither by coat 
nor color can the one be distinguished from the other. How then dis- 
tinguish them ? Nothing more easy ! The unclean animal, in circum- 
stances agreeable to its nature, wallows in the mire ; but the sheep — 
type of the godly — bleats, and strives, and struggles to get out. 

10. Unfruitful Professors. 

(50.) I have seen a branch tied to the bleeding tree, for the purpose 
of being engrafted into its wounded body, and that thus both might be 
one. Yet no incorporation had followed ; there was no living union. 
Spring came singing, and with her fingers opened all the buds ; and 
summer came, with her dewy nights and sunny days, and brought out 
all the flowers ; and brown autumn came to shake the trees and reap the 
fields, and with dances and mirth to hold " harvest home ;" but that 
unhappy branch bore no fruit, nor flower, nor even leaf. Just held on 
by dead clay and rotting cords, it stuck to the living tree — a withered 
and unsightly thing. So alas ! is it with many ; " having a name to 
live they are dead. ' ' 

11 . Christians Shine with a Borrowed Light. 

(51.) The stories of subterranean caves, where brilliant diamonds, 
thickly studding vaulted roof and fretted walls, supply the place of 
lamps, are fancies — childhood's fairy tales. Incredible as it may appear 



24 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

to ignorance, on whose admiring eyes it flashes rays of light, science 
proves that the diamond is formed of the very same matter as common, 
dull, black coal. It boasts no native light ; and dark in the darkness 
as the mud or rock where it lies embedded, it shines if with a beautiful, 
yet with a borrowed splendor. How meet an emblem of the jewels- 
that adorn the Saviour's crown ! 

12. Not Easy to be a Christian. 

(52.) Still it is no easy thing to be a Christian ; and, if words have 
any meaning, they are great and painful sacrifices which are required of 
those who are willing to take Christ on his own terms, " If any man 
will come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, 
and follow me" — " If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it 
from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should 
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if 
thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee : for it is 
profitable for thee that one of thy members sbould perish, and not that 
thy whole body should be cast into hell." God does not indeed put all 
his people to such a trial as Abraham's, saying, " Take now thy son, 
and offer him for a burnt offering," nor does Christ lay on all his dis- 
ciples an injunction so hard as this, " Go, sell all thou hast, and give it 
to the poor." Still the adage holds true as ever, No cross, no crown ! 
To mortify the lusts of the flesh, to be crucified to the world, to over- 
come the devil, to die daily to sin and live daily to righteousness, to be 
meek and gentle and patient and generous and kind and good, in one 
word to be Christ-like, is a work beyond, far beyond our ability ; one 
we should never venture on, or having ventured on, would soon aban- 
don, but that God promises to perfect his strength in our weakness, and 
is " mighty to save." 

13. Christians who are Beautiful Epistles. 

(53.) He who so orders his life and conversation as to bring no dis- 
honor or reproach on religion, who gives no occasion to its enemies to 
blaspheme, nor by his falls and inconsistencies furnishes scandals to be 
told in Gath and published in the streets of Ashkelon, does well. He 
may thank God that, amid life's slippery paths, he has prayed, nor 
prayed in vain, " Hold up my goings that my footsteps slip not." He 
does better still in whose life religion presents itself, less in a negative, 
and more in a positive form. For, while it is well to depart from evil, 
it is better to do good ; nor does he live in vain who exemplifies by his 
daily life and conversation the pure, and virtuous, and holy, and benef- 
icent, and sublime, and saving doctrines of God his Saviour. The first 
is good : the second is better : but the last is best of all. So to live as 



CHRISTIANS. 25 

to be beautiful as well as living epistles of Jesus Christ, seen and read of 
all men — so to live as to recommend the truth to the admiration and 
love of others — so to live as to constrain them to say, What a good and 
blessed thing is true religion ! — as in some measure to win the encomium 
of her who, looking on Jesus, exclaimed, " Blessed is the womb that 
bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck !" — so to live, in fact, as to 
resemble those books which, in addition to their proper contents, are 
bound in gold, are illuminated, and illustrated with paintings : or those 
pillars which, while like their plainer neighbors supporting the super- 
structure, are also its ornaments, rising gracefully from the floor in 
fluted columns, and crowned with wreaths of flowers, — this is best of all. 

14. Christian Brotherhood. 

(54.) And this relationship which, by faith, unites him and his believ- 
ing people in such close and tender and holy fellowship, so unites them 
to each other that in whatever circumstances they meet, by signs secret 
to the uninitiated and outer world, they recognize in each other the 
character and the claims of brethren. His skin may have a hue differ- 
ent from mine ; bred for the market, he may be bought and sold like a 
cattle-beast ; he may be marked with the brand, loaded with the fetters, 
lashed with the whip, crushed with the sufferings of a slave ; but if, 
with faith in Jesus, he lift his manacled hands and streaming eyes to 
that heaven where bondsmen are free, and, robed and throned, they 
stand before the throne of God, and share in the glory of his Son, slave 
though he be, sold though he be, trodden in the dust though he be, he 
and I are brothers. 

15. No Man Starts up a Finished Christian. 

(55.) In the second place, while the truth was thus slowly developed 
and let in by degrees on a benighted world, the effect of that truth on a 
benighted soul is also gradual. No man starts up into a finished Chris- 
tian. The very best come from their graves, like Lazarus, " clothed in 
grave-clothes" — not like Jesus, who left his death dress behind him ; 
and in our remaining corruptions, all, alas ! carry some of these cere- 
ments about with them, nor drop them but at the door of heaven. 

16. The Benefits of Christian Companionship. 

(56.) The children of this world, as our Lord says, are wise in their 
generation. With a care to excel which in obeying the apostolic injunc- 
tion, " covet the best gifts," the children of light would do well to 
imitate, see how the sculptor surrounds himself, even in his studio, with 
copies of the most famous statues ! He fills his mind with images of 



26 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

the sublime and beautiful ; and provides objects for his eye, whereso- 
ever it turns, adapted to kindle his ambition and improve his taste. 

(57.) Man is so constituted that, even unconsciously, without either 
intending or attempting it, he imitates what he is familiar with. We 
speak, for instance, with the peculiar accent of our native district, and 
— a matter of much more consequence — learn almost certainly to copy in 
our lives the manners and morals of our ordinary associates. According 
to vulgar belief, the chameleon becomes red, blue, or green, with the 
ground it lies on ; and, probably with the view of protecting them from 
their enemies, fishes certainly do take the color of the water they live 
in, whether it be clear or muddy. Man is endowed with a property 
akin to this. To that, so pregnant with good or evil, as much as to the 
pleasure people feel in associating with those of tastes similar to their 
own, we owe the well-known saying, " Tell me your company, and I 
will tell you your character." Hence the wisdom of David's practice, 
"lam the companion of all them that fear thee." Hence also, on the 
other hand, it happens, to quote a Scripture adage, that " Evil commu- 
nications corrupt good manners." 

(58.) This property, though many, especially of the young, owe their 
ruin to it, is not necessarily, like the poisoned garment bestowed on 
Hercules, a fatal gift. It was given by our Maker for good purposes. 
It may be turned, though nothing can supply the place of Divine grace 
and a change of heart, to the holiest ends. 



CHURCH. 

1. Of Whom the Members of the True Church Consist. 

(59.) Neither, in the first place, in our own, nor in any other existing 
church, do we see the real body of which Jesus Christ is the head. Its 
members consist of all true believers, and are dispersed over the wide 
lands of Christendom. Then, what are the best churches, at the best, 
but gold mines ? Some may be, some certainly are, richer than others 
in the precious metal, yet all have their dross and rubbish. Nor, to 
continue the figure, shall the true church become visible, appear as a dis- 
tinct and separate body, till the gold, gathered from a hundred mines, 
and purified by a Spirit whose emblem is fire, and presenting to the 
divine Refiner a perfect image of himself, is run into a common mould. 



CHURCH. 27 

2. The Marriage Tie Behveen the Lamb and His Bride Indissoluble. 

(60.) It is one which grim death shall never dissolve, and leave 
Christ's church a mourning widow. It is one which holy prophets 
sung, and long ages prepared for. It is one which the Son, though 
stooping to the lowliest object, entered into with his Father's full con- 
sent. It is one in which heaven took a part, and angels were wedding- 
guests — their harps lending the music and their wings the light. It is 
one over which all the hosts of heaven rejoiced in the fulness of gener- 
ous love — I heard, says John, as it were the voice of a great multitude, 
and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of many thunderings, 
saying Alleluiah : for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be 
glad and rejoice, and give honor to him ; for the marriage of the Lamb 
is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. May we know the truth 
■of the words that follow : Blessed are they which are called unto the 
marriage supper of the Lamb ! 

3. The Church of Christ not Identified with Forms. 

(61.) They are valuable in their own place and for their own pur- 
poses ; frames, as they are, to set the picture in ; caskets for truth's 
jewels ; dead poles, no doubt, yet useful to support living plants, and 
very beautiful when the bare stem is festooned with green leaves, and 
crowned with a head of flowers. The church of Christ, however, is not 
■to be identified with this or that other form either of government or 
worship. She embraces the good of all denominations, and rejects the 
bad, from whatever hands they have received the rite of baptism, to 
•whatever communion they may belong, however pure their creed, or 
scriptural their form of worship. " The just shall live by faith," by 
-nothing else. He belongs therefore to the true church who believes ; 
and he who believes not, to whatever church he may belong, has 
" neither part nor lot in this matter." 

4. Christ's Body not Identical with any one Church. 

(62.) He has but one church ; for the second Adam, like the first, is 
the husband of one wife. And just as the church cannot have two 
heads, neither can the head have two bodies ; for, as that body were a 
monster which had more heads than one, not less monstrous were that 
form where one head was united to two separate bodies. Of all these 
•churches, then, each claiming to be cast in the true gospel mould — that 
with consecrated bishops, this with simple presbyters, this other with- 
out either ; that administering baptism to infants as well as adults, this 
only to adults ; that robed in a ritual of many forms, this thinking that 
religion, like beauty, when unadorned, is adorned the most — which is 



28 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

Christ's body, the Lamb's wife ? Which are we to receive as the favor- 
ite of heaven ? Of which does God say, as he said of David among 
rival brethren, Arise, anoint her, for this is she ? Of none of them. 
Christ has a church, but it is none of these. In explanation of a remark 
which may surprise some, and is fitted to teach all of us humility and 
charity, I observe : 

(63.) That Christ's body, which is not identical with any one church, 
is formed of all true believers, to whatever denomination they may 
belong. 



COMMANDMENTS. 

1. Ten Commandments Obeyed and Enforced by Jesus. 

(64.) Since his long-distant day men have run to and fro and knowl- 
edge has been increased ; the boundaries of science have been vastly 
extended, but not those of morality ; nor has one new duty been added 
to those of the two tables he brought down from Sinai. A perfect code 
of morals, adapted to all ages, circumstances, and countries, time has 
neither altered, nor added to the Ten Commandments. 

(65 ) The ten stones of the arch on which our domestic happiness,, 
the purity of society, the security of life and property, and the pros- 
perity of nations stand, it was these commandments the Son of God came 
from heaven, our substitute, to obey ; with his blood, not to abrogate, 
but to enforce them ; on his cross to exalt, not in his tomb to bury, 
them ; and, cementing the shattered arch with his precious blood, to- 
lend to laws that had the highest authority of Sinai, the no less solemi> 
and more affecting sanctions of Calvary. 



CONVERSION. 

1. Agitations which Accompany Conversion. 

(66.) It is not till the glassy pool is stirred that the mud at the bot- 
tom rises to light ; it is when storms sweep the sea that what it hides 
in its depths is thrown up on the shore ; it is when brooms sweep walls 
and floors that the sunbeams, struggling through a cloud of dust, reveal 
the foulness of the house ; and it is agitations and perturbations of the 
heart which reveal its corruption, and are preludes to the purity and 
peace that sooner or later follow on conversion. 



CONVERSION. 29 

2. The Greatest of all Changes. 

(67.) This, which is the subject before us now, calls our attention to 
the greatest of all changes. I say the greatest ; one even greater than 
the marvellous transition which takes place at the instant of death — from 
dying struggles to the glories of the skies. Because, while heaven is 
the day of which grace is the dawn ; the rich, ripe fruit of which grace 
is the lovely flower ; the inner shrine of that most glorious temple to 
which grace forms the approach and outer court, in passing from nature 
to grace you did not pass from a lower to a higher stage of the same 
condition — from daybreak to sunshine, but from darkest night to dawn 
of day. Unlike the worm which changes into a winged insect, or the 
infant who grows up into a stately man, you became, not a more per- 
fect, but " a new creature" in Jesus Christ. 

3. Has its Origin in the Heart. 

(68.) "When grace subdues a rebel man, if I may so speak, the citadel 
first is taken ; afterward, the city. It is not as in those great sieges 
which we have lately watched with such anxious interest. There, ap- 
proaching with his brigades, and cavalry, and artillery, man sits down 
outside the city. He begins the attack from a distance ; creeping like 
a lion to the spring — with trench, and parallel, and battery — nearer and 
nearer to the walls. These at length are breached ; the gates are blown 
open ; through the deadly gap the red living tide rolls in. Fighting 
from bastion to bastion, from street to street, they press onward to the 
citadel, and there, giving no quarter and seeking none, beneath a defiant 
flag, the rebels, perhaps, stand by their guns, prolonging a desperate 
resistance. But when the appointed hour of conversion comes, Christ 
descends by his Spirit into the heart — at once into the heart. The 
battle of grace begins there. 

4. On the Time and Circumstances of Conversion. 

(69.) Some can tell the time of it — giving day and date, the hour, the 
providence, the place, the text, the preacher, and all the circumstances 
associated with their conversion. They can show the arrow, which, 
shot from some bow drawn at a venture, pierced the joints of their 
armor, and quivered in their heart. They can show the pebble from 
the brook, that, slung, it may be, by a youthful hand, but directed of 
God, was buried in the forehead of their giant sin. 

(70.) It is not so, however, with all, or, perhaps, with most. Some, 
so to speak, are still-born ; they were unconscious of their change ; they 
did not know when or how it happened ; for a while at least they gave 
liardly a sign of life. 



30 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

5. The Wonderful Change. 

(71.) Look at this cold creeping worm ! Playful childhood shrinks* 
shuddering from its touch ; yet a few weeks, and with merry laugh and 
flying feet, that same childhood over flowery meadow is hunting an 
insect that never lights upon the ground, but — flitting in painted beauty 
from flower to flower — drinks nectar from their cups, and sleeps the sum- 
mer night away in the bosom of their perfumes. If that is the same 
boy, this is no less the self-same creature. Change most wonderful I 
yet but a dull, earthly emblem of the divine transformation wrought on 
those who are " transformed by the renewing of their minds." 

6. The Wondrous Change from Nature to Grace. 

(72.) Fallen though he be, man is capable of undergoing, and, created 
anew in Jesus Christ, born of the Spirit, brought from nature into grace, 
undergoes a more wondrous change than the insect when, no longer a 
worm, no longer crawling on the ground, no longer feeding on garbage, 
it leaves its shell to spend its happy days in sport, flitting from flower 
to flower ; its food their juices and its bed their leaves. We thus assert 
the dignity of man. Only that his greatest, purest dignity is seen, not 
in what he does, but in what has been done for him ; not in what poets 
or philosophers have written, but the Bible has revealed of him as re- 
deemed by the precious blood of Christ, as a living temple of the Holy 
Spirit, a son of God, and an heir of glory. 

7. Conversion is a Resurrection. 

(73.) How great the change, when these mouldering bones, which 
children look at with fear, and grown men with solemn sadness, shall 
rise instinct with life ! Think of this handful of brown dust springing 
up into a form like that on which Adam gazed with mute astonishment, 
when for the first time he caught the image of himself mirrored in a 
glassy pool of Paradise ; or, better still, in a form such as, when awak- 
ening from his slumber, he saw with wondering, admiring eyes, in the 
lovely woman that lay by his side on their bed of love and flowers. And 
now, because the change which conversion works on the soul is also in- 
expressibly great, it borrows a name from that mighty change ; that, a 
resurrection of the body from the grave — this, a resurrection of the soul 
from sin. In this " we pass from death to life" — in this we are " cre- 
ated anew in Jesus Christ." " We rise with Him," says the Apostle, 
" to newness of life." 

8. A Revolution. 

(74.) Now, a change may be simply a reform, or, extending farther, 
it may pass into a revolution. The spiritual change, which we call con- 



CONVERSION. 31 

version, is not a mere reform. It is a revolution — a mighty revolution, 
if aught was ever worthy of that name — a revolution greater than the 
tomes of profane history, or any old monuments of stone or of brass 
record. It changes the heart, the habits, the eternal destiny of an im- 
mortal being. On the banner, borne in triumph at the head of this 
movement, I read the words that doom old things to ruin, " Overturn, 
Overturn, Overturn." For the old mischievous laws which it repeals, 
it introduces a new code of statutes ; it changes the reigning dynasty, 
wrenches the sceptre from a usurper's hand, and, banishing him forth 
of the kingdom, in restoring the throne to God, restores it to its right- 
ful monarch. 

9. A New Spirit Given in Conversion. 

(75.) Conversion does not bestow new faculties. It does not turn a 
weak man into a philosopher. Yet, along with our affections, the tem- 
per, the will, the judgment partake of this great and holy change. 
Thus, while the heart ceases to be dead, the head, illuminated by a 
light within, ceases to be dark ; the understanding is enlightened ; the 
will is renewed ; and our whole temper is sweetened and sanctified 
by the Spirit of God. 

10. Our Part in Conversion. 

(76.) By that tomb men do not sit mere spectators of the might and 
majesty of Godhead, Jesus addressing them to say, Stand back, stand 
still and see the salvation of God ! A great stone closes the mouth of 
the sepulchre ; standing, with the Saviour in front and the corpse behind 
it, between the living and the dead. It must be removed ; and Christ 
has only to say the word, and, moved by hands invisible, it rolls away 
to disclose the secrets of the tomb. But He who takes away stony 
hearts, because none other can, does not take away this stone ; nor ad- 
dress it, but those who have put it there, and can take it thence. He 
requires them to do what they can — each doing their part ; theirs to 
roll away the stone and his to raise the dead. Now, though we can 
neither convert nor sanctify ourselves or others, yet man has something, 
and ranch to do, as is plain from such words as these, " Cast away from 
you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed : and make 
you a new heart and a new spirit : for why will ye die ?" Strictly 
speaking, we cannot make us a new heart, but we can place ourselves or 
others in a position for God to make it. We can remove obstructions 
to that gracious and holy change — we can dispel ignorance, put away 
temptation, abandon bad habits — renounce pleasures that occupy our 
hearts. Thus removing what obstructs the flow of life and grace from 
Christ, we can " take away the stone ;" and, co-operating with God in 



32 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

the use of these, and all divinely appointed means, we can, and, as we 
ean, we ought to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, God 
working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 

11. The Joy of the Newly Converted. 

(77.) The Greek on making a discovery, of which he had long been 
in pursuit, was so transported, as to rush naked into the street, and, 
leading the people to believe him mad, cry, Eureka, Eureka — I have 
found it, I have found it ! Joy must have vent. A fountain which 
not only flows but overflows, it bursts up and out, seeking to communi- 
cate its own happiness to others. Thus some have been moved to pro- 
claim their conversion, and tell others of the peace which they enjoyed 
in believing. Come all ye that fear the Lord, says the Psalmist, and 
I will tell what he hath done for my soul ; and it is just as natural for a 
heart full of happiness and God's love to do that, as for a thrush, 
perched in a summer evening on the top of a cherry-tree, to pour out 
the joy that fills its little breast in strains of melody. It is the great 
President Edwards, I think, who relates how, on one occasion, he had 
such a sense of God's love, that he could hardly resist telling it to the 
woods, the flowers beneath his feet, and the skies above his head. No 
wonder, therefore, that when the pure and powerful joys of salvation 
are poured into a heart which sin had weakened, and never satisfied, 
the new wine should burst the old bottle, flowing forth in what seems to 
those who know no better, but ostentation and parade. 

12. God Converts His Bitterest Enemies into His Warmest Friends. 

(78.) Like the Romans, who decreed a crown to him that saved a 
citizen, we would bold him worthy of highest honors who brings forth a 
criminal from his cell, so changed as to be worthy, not only of being 
restored to the bosom of society, but of holding a place in the senate, 
or some post of dignity beside the throne. That were an achievement 
of brilliant renown — a victory over which humanity and piety would 
shed tears of joy. 

(79.) To compare small things with great, something like this — but 
unspeakably nobler and greater — God works in salvation. For example 
— In John Bunyan, he calls the bold leader of village reprobates to 
preach the gospel ; a blaspheming tinker to become one of England's 
famous confessors ; and from the gloomy portals of Bedford jail, to 
shed forth the lustre of his sanctified and resplendent genius to the 
farther limits of the world, and adown the whole course of time. From 
the deck of a slave ship he summons John Newton to the pulpit ; and 
by hands defiled with Mammon's most nefarious traffic, he brings them 
that are bound out of darkness, and smites adamantine fetters from the 



CONVICTION. 33 

slaves of sin. In Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, he converts his 
Son's bitterest enemy into his warmest friend. To the man whom a 
trembling church held most in dread, she comes to owe, under God, the 
weightiest obligations. 

13. The Wishes of the Converted Accommodated to their Wants. 
(80.) Observe, also, how, when God changes the condition of his 
creatures, he accommodates their will to the change. Take, for ex- 
ample, that insect to which I have elsewhere alluded. It comes from 
the egg a creeping worm ; it is bred in corruption ; it crawls on the 
ground ; its aliment is the coarsest fare. In time it undergoes its won- 
derful metamorphosis. The wriggling caterpillar becomes a winged and 
painted butterfly ; and at this change, with its old skin it casts off its 
old habits and instincts. Now, it has a will as well as wings to fly. 
And with its bed the bosom of a flower, its food the honeyed nectar, its 
Tiome the sunny air, and new instincts animating its frame, its will plays 
in harmony with its work. The change within corresponds to the 
ehange without. It spurns the ground ; and, as you may gather from 
its merry, mazy dance, the creature is happy, and delights in the new 
duties which it is called to perform. Even so it is in that change which 
grace works in sinners. The nature of the redeemed is so accommo- 
dated to the state of redemption, their wishes are so fitted to their 
wants, their hopes to their prospects, their aspirations to their honors, 
and their will to their work, that they would be less eontent to return to 
polluted pleasures than this beautiful creature to be stripped of its silken 
wings, and condemned to pass its days amid the old, foul garbage, its 
former food. 

14. A Fieri/ Firmament Hangs Over the Unconverted. 
(81.) Yet, in its hours of deepest darkness and quietest repose, this 
city presents no true picture of our state by nature. We see it yonder 
where a city sleeps, while eager angels point Lot's eyes to the break of 
day, and urge his tardy steps through the doomed streets of Sodom. A 
fiery firmament hangs over all the unconverted ; and there is need that 
God send his grace to do them an angel's office, saving them from im- 
pending judgments. Are you still exposed to the wrath of God ? 
Rouse thee, then, from sleep, shake off thy indolence, and leap from 
thy bed, it is all one whether thou burn on a couch of down or straw. 



CONVICTION. 

1. Conviction the First Work of the Spirit. 
(82.) The first work, accordingly, of God's Holy Spirit in conversion, 
is to rouse a man from the torpor which the poison of sin — like the 



34 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

venom of a snake infused into the veins — produces, to make him feel 
his illness, to convince him of his guilt, to make him sensible of his 
misery. And blessed the book, blessed the preacher, blessed the provi- 
dence that sends that conviction into our hearts, and lodges it, like a 
barbed arrow, there. 

2. Conviction Stifled by Sinful Pleasures. 

(83.) Robert Burns, who had times of serious reflection, in one of 
which, as recorded by his own pen, he beautifully compares himself, in 
the review of his past life, to a lonely man walking amid the ruins of a 
noble temple, where pillars stand dismantled of their capitals, and elab- 
orate works of purest marble lie on the ground, overgrown by tall, foul, 
rank weeds — was once brought, as I have heard, under deep convictions. 
He was in great alarm. The seed of the word had begun to grow. He 
sought counsel from one called a minister of the Gospel. Alas, that in 
that crisis of his history he should have trusted the helm to the hands 
of such a pilot ! This so-called minister laughed at the poet's fears — 
bade him dance them away at balls, drown them in bowls of wine, fly 
from these phantoms to the arms of pleasure. Fatal, too pleasant ad- 
vice ! He followed it : and " the lusts of other things"' entering in, 
choked the word. 



CROSS OF CHRIST. 

1. Necessity of Clinging to the Cross. 

(84.) Till we are reconciled to God, and, born again through his 
Spirit, have become new creatures in Jesus Christ, we are his enemies. 
Our works do not spring from love to him, and therefore cannot have 
any value in his eyes. And how imperfect are even the best works of 
the best saints ! There is foulness enough in the purest heart, and, in 
respect of their motives, manner, and object, sin enough in our best 
actions — those whereby we do most good and earn most commendation, 
to condemn us. To speak of us not in our worst but best state, not of 
the sins we commit, but of the best services we render, our wine has its 
water and our silver has its dross. And so, abandoning every hope of 
acceptance with a holy God through our own merits, let us cling to the 
cross of Christ, as a drowning man to the plank that, embraced in his 
arms, floats him to the shore ; the language of our faith an echo of his 
who breathed out his life with these words on his lips, None but Christ 1 
none but Christ ! 



CROSS OF CHRIST. 35 

2. We should Gaze on Calvary as well as Eden. 

(85.) And, would we do our heavenly Father justice, we must look 
on Calvary as well as on Eden. The Son of God indeed does not go up 
and down heaven weeping, wringing his hands, and, to the amazement 
of silent angels, crying, Would God that I had died for man ! A more 
amazing spectacle is here. He turns his back on heaven ; he leaves the 
bosom and happy fellowship of his Father, he bares his own breast to 
the sword of justice, and in the depths of a love never to be fathomed, 
he dies on that accursed tree, " the just for the unjust that we might be 
saved !" 

3. The Robe of Righteousness Woven There. 

(86.) Are you trusting in a righteousness of your own ? Leave that 
loom. Are the gossamer threads of your own vows and promises ever 
snapping in your hand, and breaking at every throw of the shuttle ? 
The robe of righteousness, a raiment meet for thy soul, and approved 
of by God, was never woven there. It was wrought upon the cross ; 
and, of color more enduring than Tyrian purple, it is dyed red in the 
blood of Calvary. 

4. No Dead Souls Lie at the Cross. 

(87.) But yonder, where the cross stands up high to mark the fountain 
of the Saviour's blood, and heaven's sanctifying grace, no dead souls 
lie. Once a Golgotha, Calvary has ceased to be a place of skulls. 
Where men went once to die, they go now to live ; and to none that 
ever went there to seek pardon, and peace, and holiness, did God ever 
say, Seek ye me in vain. 

5. Christ Deserted at the Cross. 

(88.) Paul had hearers, whom he addresses, saying, " Ye did run 
well, what did hinder you ?" John Baptist had many such, and in 
Herod a distinguished one — the only king, so far as I know, who felt 
such interest in religion as to break through established routine and 
leave his court chaplain to listen to a street preacher. His conduct in 
this matter, the pleasure he felt in the ministry of the fearless and faith- 
ful Baptist, the many things he did at John's bidding and advice, were 
full of promise — never soil was covered with a greener braird — never 
sky was lighted with a brighter dawn. He dured for a while ; then 
fell away — and what a fall ! — quenching the hopes, which God's people 
had begun to cherish of a pious king, in the blood of the martyred, 
murdered preacher. Not Paul, or the Baptist only, but our Lord him- 
self had many such hearers. Crowds followed him ; tracked his steps 



36 GEMS OF ILL USTRA TION. 

from city to city, from shore to shore — hanging on his lips, thronging 
the streets through which he passed, and besieging the houses where he 
lodged. The day was once when ten thousand tongues would have 
spoken and ten thousand swords would have flashed in his defence ; 
and the day arrived when, during for a while they fell away, and of 
the crowds that swelled his jubilant train, all, all deserted him — the 
only voice lifted up in his behalf coming from the cross of a dying thief. 

6. Christ's Cross and Crown are Insejjurable. 

(89.) How is that old cruel tragedy repeated day by day within the 
theatre of many a heart ! God says, " This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased ;" the preacher brings Jesus forth for accept- 
ance, clothed in purple, and crowned with thorns, and all the tokens of 
his love upon him, saying, " Behold the man ;" conscience is aroused 
to a sense of his claims ; but these all are clamored down. Stirred up 
by the devil — the love of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of 
the eye, the pride of life, and all the corrupt passions of our evil nature, 
rise like that Jewish mob to cry, " We will not have this man to reign 
over us." Let the fate of these Jews warn you against their sin ; for 
if God did such things in the green tree, what shall he do in the dry ? 
Be assured that, unless you are obeying Christ as a sovereign, you have 
never yet known him as a Saviour. Your faith is vain. His cross 
and his crown are inseparable. 



DEATH. 

1. The Timid Believer's Death. 

(90.) Your last hours may be like hers whom John Bunvan calls 
Miss Fearing. She was all her lifetime " subject to bondage," and 
dreaded the hour of death. The summons comes. And when she 
goes down into the waters, how does this shrinking, trembling, timid 
one bear herself ? Hand to hand, Christian met his enemy in the 
valley, and so smote Apollyon with the sword of the Spirit, that he 
spread forth his dragon wings, and sped him away ; yet where that 
bold believer was in deep waters, and all but perished, this daughter of 
many fears found the river shallow. She beheld the opposite shore all 
lined with shining angels, and passed with a song from earth to heaven. 

2. Death an hnmediate Gain to the Christian. 

(91.) We know that " to die " is — not shall be at some future time, 
and after some intermediate state — but "to die" is gain, gain imme- 



DEATH. 37 

diate. One step — and, what a step ! — the soul is in glory. Ere the 
wail has sunk in the chamber of death, the song of the upper sanctuary 
has begun. There is no delay ; no waiting for an escort to travel that 
invisible, untrodden way. Angels unseen are moving in that chamber, 
looking on with tearless eyes where all else are weeping ; and, the last 
breath out — the last quiver passed from the lip — and away, away, they 
are off with the spirit for glory. On angel's wings the beggar is borne 
to Abraham's bosom ; and the shout of saints and angels, that greeted 
the Conqueror, is still ringing amid the arches of heaven, when the door 
opens, and the thief walks in. " This day thou shalt be with me in 
Paradise." He leaves his cross, and direct, as I have seen a lark drop 
singing into her nest, he goes up singing to his crown. 

3. A Hard Fight at Death. 

(92.) Though the more work done now, the less there is to do at a 
less suitable time, it occasionally happens that the death-bed of the be- 
liever is the scene of his hardest fight, and of Satan's fiercest tempta- 
tions. Nowhere has the roaring of the lion sounded more dreadful than 
in the valley of the shadow of death. And it is sometimes with sin as 
with the monster of the deep, when to the cry, "Stern all," the men 
who have buried their lances in its ample sides, seize the oars, and pull 
rapidly out of the sweep of that tremendous tail that beats the ocean till 
it sounds afar, and churns the blood-stained waves into crimson foam. 
Men of undoubted piety have found sin's dying to be sin's hardest 
struggles. It happens with the kingdom of heaven as with a city the 
violent take by force ; the hardest fighting may be in the breach, the 
battle may rage fiercest where the city is entered, and just when the 
prize is to be won. 

4. The Dying Christian. 

(93.) He clings like Peter to the hand of Jesus. Mercy is all his 
prayer, and mercy all his praise ; hopes of mercy in the future kindle in 
his eye, and grateful thanks for mercies in the past employ his latest 
breath, and dwell on his faltering tongue. His last conscious look turns 
away from his own works to fix itself upon the cross, and the last word 
that trembles on his quivering lip is, Jesus ! 

5. Footprints of Death. 

(94.) Our children may not abide ; the earth sounds hollow to the 
foot — it is so full of graves. Ah ! how few gardens are there where 
death has not left his footprints, when he came to steal away some of 
our sweetest flowers. Few are the trees standing on this earth, from 



38 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

which he has not lopped off some goodly boughs. In this world, have 
I not seen one and another stand bleak and branchless ; and oh, how 
blessed for the father who has laid the last survivor in the dust, and 
returns from that saddest funeral to find God waiting for him in his 
desolate home ! 

6. It is Well for Some People to View Death. 

(95.) On relating that he had gone to see a criminal die under the 
guillotine, and how he had watched the whole affair with an opera-glass, 
Lord Byron says it is well to see such things once : and, however 
repulsive the spectacle, when I have seen some pretty but vain, silly 
woman come vaporing with mincing steps and haughty air into the house 
of God, not to worship, but be worshipped, I have thought it would be 
well that such people, for once at least, saw what they are to become. 
Nor am I singular in that. It is told of an Italian friar, one of Rome's 
great Lent preachers — a class of men who often subdue their audience 
into tears, and by vivid descriptions of hell and purgatory throw women 
into fainting-fits and men into convulsions — that denouncing on one 
occasion " the lust of the eye and the pride of life," he fixed his large, 
black, brilliant eyes on a proud beauty who sat before him, and drove 
the color off her cheek. Taking a grinning skull from out the folds of 
his cloak, he suddenly held it up before her face, to say, See what thou 
sbalt be ! 

7. Preparation for Death. 

(96.) What may happen any day, ,t is certainly wise to be prepared 
for every day. So men make their wills : but so, alas, they don't mind 
their souls ! This ye should have done, but not have left the other 
undone. There is no lawyer, but, if you have any property to dispose 
of, and would not have your death the signal for quarrels and lawsuits 
and heart-burnings, will advise you to make a settlement, nor delay one 
day to do so. Oh, how much more need to make your peace with God, 
and prepare your eternal rather than your temporal affairs for death, — 
to make it all up w T ith Him who is willing to forgive all, and is now 
tarrying on the road to give you time to get oil, and go forth with joy 
to the cry, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh ! 

8. Death of Christ. 

(97.) "Tell me," said a saintly minister of the Church of England, 
whose star but lately set on this world, to rise and shine in better skies — 
" Tell me," he said to his physician, "the true state of my case; 
conceal nothing ;" adding, as his eye kindled, and his face beamed at 



DEATH. 39 

the very thought, ' ' if you have to tell me that my dissolution is near, 
you could not tell me better or happier news." 

9. Death of Saints. 

(98.) There is enough in the prospects which faith opens up to raise 
a man out of himself, and render him insensible alike to the feeling of 
pain and the fears of death. Even those feelings which are commonly 
feeble may, being roused, undergo such change and acquire such power 
as a mountain brook, that, ordinarily murmuring along its stony channel 
of little pools and tiny waterfalls, when thunders shake the heavens and 
roll among the hills, swells into a torrent which, dashing, roaring, foam- 
ing along its rugged course, sweeps everything before it. Look, for 
example, at the bird to whose protecting wings our Lord compares his 
own fond kindness ! See how bravely, though by nature timid, she 
defends her helpless brood, and ruffles her feathers to spring in the face 
of man or beast. The maternal affection, roused by a sense of danger, 
takes entire possession of her heart, and imparts to it the courage of a 
lion. Even the love of science — a passion, if as pare, commonly as cold 
as a wintry sky — has overmastered the fears of death. Archimedes 
calmly pursued his studies in Syracuse amid the uproar of the assault ; 
nor when a soldier, with murderous weapon and intent, burst into his 
apartment, asked other favor at his hand but a few more minutes to 
finish the problem he was engaged in solving. Even less noble and 
exalted passions may become equally absorbing. A Roman army once 
fought with such enthusiasm as to be insensible to an earthquake that 
rocked the ground beneath their feet ; and I knew a soldier who, with 
the foe before him and comrades falling at his side, was raised so much 
above the sense of pain as never to discover that a ball from the French 
had shattered his wrist, till he found himself unable to fire off the musket 
he had levelled at their ranks. 

(99. ) No wonder, therefore, that the prospects of dying saints should 
sometimes lift them above themselves. 



10.-4 Glorious Sunset of a Stormy Day. 

(100.) Thus one of our Scottish martyrs, standing on the ladder from 
which they were to throw him off, assured the weeping spectators that 
he had never gone up to his pulpit to preach with so little fear as he had 
mounted that ladder to die — to him it was a perch from which his spirit, 
wearied of a world full of sin and sorrows, was spreading out its joyful 
wings for the flight to heaven. Another, addressing his weeping mother 
and sisters, who had entered his cell for a last visit on the morning of 



40 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

his execution, said, " Let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the 
Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. Could I have 
ever thought that the fear of suffering and death could be so taken from 
me. Lord ! " he exclaimed, " Thou hast brought me within two hours 
of eternity, and this is no matter of terror to me, more than if I rose to 
go to lie down on a bed of roses : now that I am so near the end of 
time, I desire to bless the Lord : death is to me as a bed to the weary 1 
Yonder," he remarked on hearing the drums beat for his execution, 
** yonder is my welcome call to the marriage. The Bridegroom is 
coming. I am ready ! " Assured, as he said, by God of his salvation, 
with these sublime words he left the world to pass within the veil — 
"Farewell, beloved fellow-sufferers and followers of the Lamb. Fare- 
well, night-wanderings for Christ and all sublunary things. Farewell, 
conflicts with a body of sin and death. Welcome, scaffold for precious 
Christ. Welcome, heavenly Jerusalem. Welcome, innumerable com- 
pany of angels. Welcome, crown of glory. Welcome, above all, thou 
blessed Trinity and one God. O Eternal One, I commit my soul unto 
thy eternal rest." What a glorious sunset of a stormy day ! 



DECISION. 

1 . Decision of the Old Romans. 

(101.) The brave old Romans, whom Caesar led, invaded our country 
after a different fashion. The first thing they did, on disembarking, 
was to burn their ships ; doing so in sight of thousands who were 
bravely mustering on the heights of England, to defend their homes, 
their wives and little ones, their freedom and native land. Not leaving 
the enemy to cut off their retreat, they cut it off themselves. Their 
own hands put the torch to the fleet which had brought them to Britain, 
and, in the event of failure, would have carried them back to Italy. 
With the glare of that brave conflagration on their eagles, banners, and 
serried ranks, we cannot wonder that, with such sons to fight her 
battles, Rome rose from a petty town to be mistress of the world. Both 
her destiny and their determination were to be plainly seen in the blaze 
of their burning ships. Bringing to the enterprise such an indomitable 
spirit and such decision of character, unless the stars of heaven fought 
against them as against Sisera, how could they fail to conquer ? 

(102.) Such is the resoluteness of mind and purpose the Christian's 
work requires ; nor without some good measure of that, as well as of 
the grace and spirit of God, can it be brought to a successful issue. On 



DIFFERENCES. 41 

engaging in our Father's - business — entering on the trials and triumphs 
of the Christian life, we also are, so to speak, to burn our ships, nor so 
much as think of retreat. Abandoning forever any idea of returning 
to sin, we are to leave no way open but that which, though beset with 
trials and swarming with foes, leads straight on to heaven. 



DIFFERENCES. 

1. Differences of Christians. 

(103.) These differences are like our dark, cold shadows, that, little 
at noon, grow larger as night approaches, assuming a gigantic size when 
the sun creeps along the horizon of a winter sky, or hangs low at his 
rise or setting. Sun of Righteousness ! rise higher and higher over us, 
till in thy light and love the church enjoys the full blaze of thy meridian 
beams, and these shadows all but vanish ! For this blessed end, God of 
love, pour out thy Spirit more affluently on the churches ! Then shall 
the brethren dwell together in unity, and the world say, as it said in the 
days of old, See how these Christians love one another ! 

2. Unworthy Passions Keep True Christians Apart. 

(104.) Dishonored often in the present time by their quarrels, and 
always by their separation, Jesus shall then be glorified in all his saints. 
It is the dust and the rust which the liquid mercury has contracted that 
impair the beauty of its lustre, and prevent the union of its divided 
globules. And what is it but earthly contaminations and unworthy 
passions that keep true Christians apart. From these let them be puri- 
fied by the genial fires of love, or the sharp fires of suffering, and union 
will follow — follow as when the purified globules of quicksilver, brought 
into contact, run into each other's embraces to form one shining and 
brilliant mass. 

3. Tendency to Run into Extremes. 

(105.) Whoever reflects on the spherical form of the earth will per- 
ceive that a traveller going east may continue his journey in that direc- 
tion till, passing round half the globe, he is on the west of us. He has, 
in fact, by advancing very far on one and the same line, exactly reversed 
his position. And just as a man, if he goes very far east, gets into the 
west, so there is always a danger lest, in our anxiety to avoid one error, 
we go so far in the opposite direction as to fall into another. Almost 
all religious, to say nothing of other controversies, illustrate this fact. 
The longer they rage, the fiercer grow the passions which they kindle, 



42 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

and the more extreme the positions which the combatants, carried away 
by their feelings, are apt to assume. 



DIFFICULTIES. 

1. Eminent Men Nursed Amid Difficulties. 

(106.) It is not commonly — and this makes Moses' case the more 
remarkable — from among the enervating influences of wealth, and ease, 
and luxury, that men come forth to do grand things. It is with them 
as with birds. Those birds soar the highest that have had the hardest 
upbringing. Warm and soft the pretty nest where, under the covering 
of her wings, amid green leaves and golden tassels and the perfume of 
flowers, the mother bird of sweet voice, but short and feeble flight, 
rears her tender brood. Not thus are eagles reared, as I have seen on 
scaling a dizzy crag. There, their cradle an open shelf, their nest a few 
rough sticks spread on the naked rock, the bright-eyed eaglet sat exposed 
to the rains that seamed the hill-sides, and every blast that howled 
through the glen. Such the hard nursing of birds that were thereafter 
to soar in sunny skies, or with strong wings cleave the clouds, and ride 
upon the storm ! Even so, I thought, God usually nurses those amid 
difficulties and hardship who are destined to rise to eminence, and ac- 
complish great deeds on earth. Hence says Solomon, " It is good for a 
man to bear the yoke in his youth." 



DOCTRINES. 

1. No Formal Arrangement of Doctrines in the Word of God. 

(107.) There is a difference, which even childhood may discern, be- 
tween the manner in which the doctrines and duties of the Gospel are 
set forth in the Word of God, and their more formal arrangement in our 
catechisms and confessions. They are scattered here and there over the 
face of Scripture, much as the plants of nature are upon the surface of 
the globe. There, for example, we meet with nothing corresponding to 
the formal order, systematic classification, and rectangular beds of a 
botanical garden ; on the contrary, the creations of the vegetable king- 
dom lie mingled in what, although beautiful, seems to be wild confusion. 
Within the limits of the same moor or meadow the naturalist gathers 
grasses of many forms, he finds it enamelled with flowers of every hue ; 
and in those forests which have been planted by the hand of God, and 
beneath whose deep shades man still walks in rude and savage freedom, 
trees of every form and foliage stand side by side like brothers. 



ENERGY. 43 

2. The Harmony of the Doctrines of the Bible. 

(108.) Having scattered over an open field the bones of the human 
"body, bring an anatomist to the scene. Conduct him to the valley 
where Ezekiel stood, with his eye on the skulls and dismembered skele- 
tons of an unburied host. Observe the man of science how he fits bone 
to bone and part to part, till from those scattered members he con- 
structs a framework, which, apart from our horror at the eyeless sockets 
and fleshless form, appears perfectly, divinely beautiful. In hands 
which have the patience to collect and the skill to arrange these mate- 
rials, how perfectly they fit ! bone to bone, and joint to joint, till the 
whole figure rises to the polished dome, and the dumb skeleton seems 
to say, " I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Now, as with these 
parts of the human frame, so is it with the doctrines of the Gospel, in 
so far as they are intelligible to our understandings. Scattered over the 
pages of sacred Scripture, let them also be collected and arranged in 
systematic order, and how beautifully they fit ! doctrine to doctrine, duty 
to duty ; till, all connected with each other, all members one of another, 
" they rise up into a form of perfect symmetry, and present that very 
system which, with minor differences but substantial unity, is embodied 
in the confessions, creeds, and catechisms of Evangelical Christendom." 
I have said so far as they are intelligible to us ; for it is ever to be 
borne in mind, that while the Gospel has shallows through which a child 
may wade and walk on his way to heaven, it has deep, dark, unfathomed 
pools, which no eye can penetrate, and where the first step takes a 
giant beyond his depth. 



ENERGY. 

1. The Great Difference between Men. 

(109.) In a letter to his son, Sir Fowell Buxton, a great and eminently 
Christian man, says : " You are now at that period of life in which you 
must make a turn to the right or to the left. You must now give 
proof of principle, determination, and strength of mind ; or you must 
sink into idleness, and acquire the habits and character of an ineffective 
young man. I am sure that a young man may be very much what he 
pleases. In my own case it was so. Much of my happiness and all my 
prosperity in life have resulted from the change I made at your age." 
Elsewhere he says : " The longer I live, the more I am certain that the 
great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the 
great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination — a pur- 
pose once fixed, and then death or victory !" 



44 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

2. Energy causes Success. 

(110.) Not simply to the wind, however auspicious, does the seaman 
owe his progress. Without it, indeed, his ship would but rise and fall 
in the swell of the deep ; but without the skill to catch and use the 
breeze, and compel it, even when adverse, by dexterous trimming of the 
yards, and setting of the sails, and handling of the helm, to force him 
on and over the waves, what service were the wind to him ? So was it 
in Joseph's, and so it is in all cases of success. God gives the oppor- 
tunities ; but success turns on the use we make of them ; on the promp- 
titude with which we seize the openings of providence ; on the weight 
of character we bring into the field ; on the resolution and energy we 
throw into our business. 



ENVY. 



1. Envy is a Base Po 

(111.) A bad, a base, in every way an unprofitable passion ; one that, 
more than any other, carries its own punishment with it, and makes- 
those who cherish it wretched, envy is its own avenger ; and yet, so 
prone are many to regard others with envy, that a man may feel assured 
that he has begun to rise in the world so soon as he hears the buzz of 
detractors, and feels their poisoned stings. This, indeed, is not a bad 
test of merit, just as we know that to be the finest and the ripest fruit 
which bears the marks of having been attacked by wasp, or hornet, or 
other such winged or wingless insects. 



EQUALITY. 

1. Nature 1 a Inequalities. 

(112.) What variety of plants between the stately cedar and the lichen 
that seems only to color the surface of the naked rock ; between levia- 
than, either floating like an island on the glassy deep, or, in his rage, 
churning the sea into snowy foam, and those creatures which the micro- 
scope detects, of forms so minute that ten thousand millions — a number 
equal to the whole human race — have been found in the space of one 
square inch. With such inequalities in heaven and earth, among an- 
gels and animals, it were strange if human society presented a uniform 
aspect, no corresponding variety. 



ETERNITY. 45 

2. The Only Attainable Equality. 

(113.) God has placed men in different circumstances and endowed 
them with different gifts. Society has its heights and hollows ; and it 
were as easy, by throwing down the mountains into the valleys, to reduce 
this globe itself, as to reduce it to one dead, uniform, uninteresting 
level. Such " equality, liberty and fraternity" as the French of last 
century raved of, and to reach waded to their knees in blood, was a 
dream. These are the privileges of Christ's kingdom ; and of none 
other. Slaves whom the truth makes free are free indeed. Those 
who love one another as Christ loved them are brothers ; and more than 
brothers. And the grandest and only attainable equality is that of the 
grace of God. It raises all who receive Christ, peasants and princes 
both, to a common but lofty level ; redeeming them by one blood, sanc- 
tifying them by one Spirit, constituting them kings and priests to God, 
and calling them all up to the glory which Jesus had with the Father 
before the foundation of the world. 



ERROR. 



1. Too Much Zeal in Putting Down Error. 
(114.) Our tendency to run into extremes finds no less striking and 
more sad illustrations in the doctrinal positions which good men have 
allowed themselves to be driven into by the violence of controversy and 
the natural recoil from error. In their zeal to put down one error they 
have often fallen into another — to use Archbishop Whately's favorite 
adage, going too far east, they have got into the west. Of this we have 
a remarkable example in the positions in which Wesley and Toplady 
were found at the end of their controversy. Eminently good men, 
whose names are still fragrant and whose praise is in all the churches, at 
the commencement of their controversy the first appeared as the cham- 
pion of a moderate Arminianism, the second of a moderate Calvin- 
ism. But ere that unhappy war had spent its vehemence, Wesley in 
his recoil from Toplady' s Calvinism, and the other in his recoil from 
Wesley's Arminianism, had each taken up positions, and ventured on 
statements, which in their calmer moments neither of them would have 
approved or defended. 



ETERNITY. 

1. Eternity Opens Men's Eyes. 
(115.) We are in darkness till we are converted ; because we are 
blind — and that not by accident, but by nature — born blind. There are 



46 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

animals, both wild and domestic, which, by a strange and mysterious, 
law of Providence, are born in that state. " Having eyes, they see 
not." Apparently unripe for the birth, they leave their mother's womb 
to pass the first period of their being utterly sightless. But, when some 
ten days have come and gone, time unseals their eyelids, and they are 
delivered from the power of darkness. But not ten days, nor years, 
nor any length of time, will do us such friendly office. Not that we 
shall be always blind. Oh, how men shall see, and regret in another 
world, the folly they were guilty of in this ! Eternity opens the darkest 
eyes, but opens them, alas, too late : "He lifted up his eyes, being in 
torment." He is a madman who braves that fate ; yet it awaits you, 
unless you bestir yourselves, and, shaking sloth away, seize the golden 
opportunity to pursue the Saviour with the blind man's cry, " Thou Son 
of David, have mercy on me !" 



FAITH. 

1. Dead Faith. 

(116.) And, as in camp followers, or armor, or baggage, what does 
not promote impairs the efficiency of an army ; as in a household those 
who do not help hinder work, if the body, through accident or mon- 
strous birth has a limb that is of no service, it is considered an incum- 
brance rather than an advantage. Regarded as a deformity, not an 
ornament, it is removed ; when the operation can be safely performed, 
it is condemned to the surgeon's knife. So is it with Christ's body — 
that church of the living God which he has purchased with his blood. 
By whatever hands they were baptized, to whatever Communion they 
professedly belong, let none fancy that they belong to Christ, unless 
they are found working in his service. For them to talk of being saved 
by faith is to dishonor the Gospel, and to deceive themselves. Faith 
without works, as James plainly tells us, is dead ; and like all dead 
things, is an offence. 

2. Oar Saviour's Pattern of Faith. 

(117.) Such is the faith which nature gives it in a father, that it 
never doubts his word. It believes all he says, and is content to believe 
where it is not able to comprehend. For this, as well as other reasons, 
our Lord presented, in a child, the living model of a Christian. He 
left Abraham, father of the faithful, to his repose in heaven ; he left 
Samuel, undisturbed, to enjoy the quiet rest of his grave ; he allowed 
Moses and Elias, after their brief visit, to return to the skies, and wing 



FAITH. 47 

their way back to glory. For a pattern of faith, he took a boy from 
his mother's side, and, setting him up, in his gentle, blushing, shrinking 
modesty, before the great assembly, he said, " Whosoever shall not 
receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter 
therein. ' ' 

3. Faith the Believer's Mainstay. 

(118.) Faith being then, as faith is still, the medium of connection 
between human weakness and Divine power, it was his mainstay. He 
was thrown entirely on its strength. The ship does not ride the storm 
otherwise than by the hold her anchor takes of the solid ground. By 
that, which lies in the calm depths below, as little moved by the waves 
that swell, and roll, and foam above, as by the winds that lash them 
into fury, she resists the gale, and rides the billows of the stormiest sea. 
But her safety depends on something else also. When masts are struck 
and sails are furled, and, anchored off reef or rocky shore, she is labor- 
ing in the wild tumult for her life, it likewise lies in the strength of her 
cable and of the iron arms that grasp the solid ground. By these she 
hangs to it ; and thus not only the firm earth, but their strength also is 
her security. Let the flukes of the anchor, or strands of the cable snap, 
and her fate is sealed. Nothing can avert it. Powerless to resist, and 
swept forward by the sea, she drives on ruin ; and hurled against an 
iron shore, her timbers are crushed to pieces like a shell. And what 
anchor and cable are to her, the faith, by which man makes God's 
strength his own, was to Gideon ; and is still to believers in their times 
of trial. 

4. Want of Faith in our Lord's Commands. 

(119.) Let me say further, that I fear we have not faith enough in 
the literal sense. of many of our Lord's injunctions, as is touchingly 
illustrated by the following fact : Two boys, brothers, had fallen out, 
and in the heat and whirlwind of his passion the elder struck the 
younger on the cheek. Brave as steel and quick as lightning, the other 
raised his arm to return the blow ; but ere it fell, he remembered how 
he had read that morning by his mother's knee these words, " When 
one smites thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also. " No 
sophist, but a simple child who took Christ's words in their plain and 
ordinary sense, he drops his arm, and turning on his brother eyes where 
tears of forgiveness had quenched the flash of anger, he offered the other 
cheek for a second blow. It was the other's turn to weep now. Sur- 
prised, subdued, melted, he fell on his brother's neck ; and, kissing 
him, acknowledged his offence and implored forgiveness. And there, 
locked in fond embraces, the two boys stood a living proof of this, that 



48 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

our Lord's highest and apparently most impracticable injunctions admit 
of a more literal obedience than any give them, and than any almost 
suppose it possible to give them. 

5. Faith the Motto on the Banner. 

(120.) Bring out from the dust of six thousand years the old covenant 
of Eden, and on that soiled and torn banner, you read the fading motto, 
" Do and live." But what read we on the folds of this banner, which, 
defiant of hell and the world, waves above Calvary, and under which 
believers march to crowns and victory ? The eye of a sinner's hope 
kindles at the sight of another and better motto ; for there, inscribed in 
the blood of Jesus, like red letters on a snow-white ground, we read, 
" Believe and live." Salvation is the one thing needful for man, and 
faith is the one thing needful for salvation. 

6. The All- Comprehensive Answer. 

(121.) That great question — the greatest of all questions — is one 
-which admits of a very short and intelligible answer. Capable of being 
much expanded, it can yet be brought within a very narrow compass. 
The river, which there flows between distant banks, and yonder expands 
itself out into a lake, reflecting on its mirror-face the bright heavens 
above and the dark hills around, is here brought — where its foaming 
waters flash past, loud as thunder, and quick as lightning, or creep sul- 
lenly along at the bottom of the deep, dark gorgo — within narrow 
bounds ; bounds so narrow, that with nerve enough, by one brave leap 
from rock to rock, I could clear its breadth. Even so all the wide ex- 
panse of doctrines to be believed, and duties to be done, which might 
be expatiated over in reply to the question, What shall I do to be 
saved ? is contracted, compressed, comprehended in the Apostle's brief 
speech, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 

V. Fretting and Trusting. 
(122.) Between a man, torn with anxieties, tossed with fears, fretting 
with cares, and the good man, who calmly trusts in the Lord, oh ! 
there is as great a difference as between a brawling, roaring, mountain 
brook, that with mad haste leaps from crag to crag, and is ground into 
boiling foam, and the placid river, which, with beauty on its banks and 
heaven in its bosom, spreads blessings wherever it flows, and pursues the 
noiseless tenor of its way back to the great ocean, from which its waters 
came. 

8. Abraham's Great Faith. 

(123.) Look now at Abraham's faith ! It stood the test of severe 
trials. He is called to leave his country and his kindred — called to go 



FALL, THE. 49 

lie knew not where ; called to be he knew not what. Nor does he hesi- 
tate. He instantly responds ; repairs to Canaan ; and lives and dies in 
the confident belief that it shall belong to him and his. Yet he found 
no place there to rest the sole of his foot — his weary foot — but was 
"tossed about during a long lifetime here and there, like a sea-weed 
which is floated hither and thither on the wandering billows, cast on the 
shore by this tide and swept away by that. Looking not at the things 
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, the life of all be- 
lievers is more or less one of faith. But of Abraham and his whole life 
in the land of Canaan, of every journey he undertook, every march he 
made, and every footprint he left on its soil or on its sands, it might be 
literally as well as figuratively said, it was true of him in respect of 
this world as well as of the next, as it never was of any other man, 
■" He walked by faith and not by sight." 

(124.) This faith culminates on Moriah — the Mount where, laying 
Isaac on the altar, it endures its greatest trial, and achieves its greatest 
triumph. It furnishes the only key to the questions that rise unbidden 
.as we read the story — a fond and doting father, how could Abraham 
undertake the dreadful task ? how was he able to contemplate embruing 
his hands in the blood of his son ? how did his reason withstand the 
shock ? how did his heart not break ; how had he nerve to disclose 
the dreadful truth to Isaac, to kiss him, bind his naked limbs, to draw 
the knife from its sheath, and raise his arm for the blow ? how did 
not the cords of life snap under the strain, and Abraham, spared 
"the horrid sacrifice, fall dead on the altar — a pitiful sight, a father 
clasping within his lifeless arms the beloved form of his son ? It is 
by the power of faith he stands there, the knife glittering in his 
Jiand. his arm raised to strike — the conqueror of nature. The blow 
shall make him childless, yet he believes that he shall be the father 
of a mighty nation ; that when the flames have consumed the loved 
form at his side, Isaac shall rise from their ashes ; and that after this 
bloody tragedy and greatest act of worship, with Isaac restored to his 
arms, as they climbed, they shall descend the Mount together. Who 
-can help exclaiming, Abraham, great is thy faith ! 



FALL, THE. 

1. Speculations on the Fall. 

(125.) But in saving ourselves and others, I am sure that there is 
-enough to do, without occupying our attention with unsatisfactory specu- 



50 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

lations on moral evil, and the entrance of sin into our world. In the 
first place, few have time or talent for such studies. In the second 
place, although we had, we should find that, like going down into a 
coal-pit, or the depths of ocean, the further we descended the darker it 
grew ; we should fare no better than the fallen intelligences described 
by Milton : 

" Others apart sate on a hill retired, 
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high 
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate — 
Fixed fate, free will foreknowledge absolute — 
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost, 
Of good and evil much they argued there — 
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy." 

2. Idolatry Proclaims the Fall. 

(126.) We gaze with blank astonishment on the gods of many- 
heathen race's. We ask, is it possible that rational beings have bent the 
knee to this painted stick, that, with a bunch of feathers stuck on its 
head, and two bits of inlaid pearl-shell for eyes, presents but the rudest 
resemblance to the form of humanity ? Not only possible but certain. 
Talk of " the dignity of our nature !" How that ugly idol, with man 
supplicating its help and trembling before its wrath, refutes the notion, 
and proclaims the fall ! Contrast Adam, erect in his innocence, and 
lifting up an open countenance to the heavens, with that dark, crouch- 
ing, miserable savage, who kneels to this stick. What a fall is there ! 
How is the gold become dim ? how is the most fine gold changed ? 

3. Emblem of Man's Fallen State. 

(127.) We have sometimes thought that we saw the fittest emblem of 
man's fallen state, in the ruins of an old church. Now deserted, dese- 
crated, defiled, what a change is there ! Save in the ivy, that like pity 
clings to the crumbling wall — sustaining and veiling its decay — and in 
some sweet wild flower rooted in window-sill, or gaping rent, beauty 
and life are gone. Yet there, once on a time, many a beautiful babe 
was baptized to God ; there holy words were spoken ; holy vows were 
taken, and holy communions held. There are eyes in glory that turn 
with interest to that lonely spot — God and man often met within these 
roofless walls ; " This and that man was born there." But now the 
only sounds are the sighing of the wind or the roar of the storm — the 
hoot of the owl, or the hiss of the serpent ; no life is found there now, 
but in the brood of the night bird, which has its nest among the ruins 
above, or in the worms that fatten upon the dead in their cold graves 
below. " The glory is departed. " And once a shrine of God, but now 



FAITH, THE. 51 

a deserted sanctiiary, may we not write " Ichabod " on the heart? 
The ruin resounds with the echoes which the ear of fancy hears mutter- 
ing among the desolate heaps of Babylon — " Fallen, fallen, fallen !" 

4. Man has Made Himself what He is. 

(128.) Indeed, I would a thousand times sooner believe, that man 
made himself what he is, than that God made him so ; for in the one 
case I should think ill of man only ; in the other I am tempted to blame 
his Maker. Just think, I pray you, to what conclusion our reason 
would conduct us in any analogous case. You see, for example, a beau- 
tiful capital still bearing some of the flowers and foliage which the chisel 
of a master had carved upon the marble. It lies prostrate on the 
ground, half -buried among weeds and nettles ; while beside it there rises 
from its pedestal the headless shaft of a noble pillar. Would you not 
conclude at once that its present position, so base, mean, and prostrate, 
was not its original position ? You would say the lightning must have 
struck it down ; or an earthquake have shaken it, or some ignorant bar- 
barian had climbed the shaft, and with rude hand had hurled it to the 
ground. Well, we look at man, and come to a similar conclusion. 
There is something, there is much that is wrong, both in his state and 
condition. His mind is carnal, and at enmity with God ; the " imag- 
inations of his heart are only evil continually," so says the Bible. His 
body is the seat of disease ; his eyes are often swimming in tears ; care, 
anticipating age, has drawn deep furrows on his brow ; he possesses 
noble faculties, but, like people of high descent, who have sunk into a 
low estate and become menials, they drudge in the service of the mean- 
est passions. 

5. Nature, Society, and the World Proclaim that Man has Fallen. 

(129.) Suppose, that on his return from Africa, some Park, or 
Bruce, or Campbell, were to tell how he had seen the lions of the desert 
leave their prey, and, meeting face to face in marshalled bands, amid 
roars that drowned the thunder, engage in deadly battle, he would find 
none so credulous as to believe him ; the world would laugh the traveller 
and his tales to scorn. But should a thing so strange and monstrous 
occur — should we see the cattle, while the air shook with their bellow- 
ings, and the ground trembled beneath their hoofs, rush from their dis- 
tant pastures, to form two vast, black, solid columns ; and should these 
herds, with heads levelled to the charge, dash forward to bury their 
horns in each other's bodies, we would proclaim a prodigy, and ask 
what madness had seized creation. Well, is not sin the parent of 
more awful prodigies ? Look here — turn to the horrors of this battle- 



52 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

field. This is no fancy, but a fact — a bloody, sickening fact. The 
ground lies thick with the mangled brave ; the air is shaken with the 
most horrible sounds ; every countenance expresses the passions of a 
fiend. Humanity Hies shrinking from the scene, and leaves it to rage, 
revenge, and agony. Fiercer than the cannon's flash shoot flames of 
wrath from brother's eyes ; they sheathe their swords in each other's 
bowels ; every stroke makes a widow, and every ringing volley scatters 
a hundred orphans on a homeless world. I would sooner believe that 
there was no God at all, than that man appears in this scene as he came 
from the hand of a benignant Divinity. Man must have fallen ; nature, 
society, the state of the world, are so many echoes of the voice of Rev- 
elation ; they proclaim that man is fallen — that the gold has become 
dim, and the fine gold has perished. 

6. Aristotle is but the Ruins of an Adam. 

(130. ) Aristotle — says South in one of his brilliant sermons — Aristotle 
is but the ruins of an Adam. This being the view of man which the 
Bible presents, and the Fall accounts for, those who receive it in its in- 
tegrity have been charged with holding low, mean, degrading views of 
the nature and of the dignity of man. In one sense this is true ; in 
another nothing is more false. It is true in so far as the Bible teaches 
us to believe that all men, in consequence of sin, are criminals in the 
sight of God and lie under sentence of death ; that all are dead in tres- 
passes and sins ; that there is none that docth good, no, not one ; and 
that, presenting sin in a totally different aspect from that in which it is 
regarded by many as a light and little thing, sin is exceeding sinful. 

(131.) What terms can express its degradation other than those of 
Scripture — our righteousnesses are as filthy rags ; or, in figures borrowed 
from the loathsome leprosy, the whole head is sick, the whole heart is 
faint, and there is no soundness in us, but wounds, and bruises, and 
putrefying sores. We do entertain low views of human nature ; and so, 
however loudly they assert its dignity, do others — all who put locks on 
their doors and a witness on his oath, build prisons and support police. 



FIDELITY. 

1. Remarkable Example of Fidelity. 

(132.) There was nothing in Pompeii — that most weird and wonderful 
of all cities ; " city of the dead," as Walter Scott kept repeating to 



FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS. 53 

himself when they bore the shattered man through its silent streets — that 
invested it with a deeper interest to me than the spot where a soldier of 
old Eome displayed a most heroic fidelity. That fatal day on which 
Vesuvius, at whose feet the city stood, burst out into an eruption that 
shook the earth, poured torrents of lava from its riven sides, and dis- 
charged, amid the noise of a hundred thunders, such clouds of ashes as 
filled the air, produced a darkness deeper than midnight, and struck 
such terror into all hearts, that men thought not only that the end of 
the world had come and all must die, but that the gods themselves 
were expiring — on that night a sentinel kept watch by the gate which 
looked to the burning mountain. Amid unimaginable confusion, and 
shrieks of terror mingling with 'the roar of the volcano, and cries of 
mothers who had lost their children in the darkness, the inhabitants fled 
the fatal town, while the falling ashes, loading the darkened air, and 
penetrating every place, rose in the streets till they covered the house- 
roofs, nor left a vestige of the city but a vast silent mound, beneath 
which it lay unknown, dead and buried, for nearly 1*700 years. Amid 
this fearful disorder the sentinel at the gate had been forgotten ; and as 
Rome required her sentinels, happen what might, to hold their posts till 
relieved by the guard or set at liberty by their officers, he had to choose 
between death or dishonor. Pattern of fidelity, he stood by his post. 
Slowly but surely, the ashes rise on his manly form ; now they reach 
his breast ; and now covering his lips, they choke his breathing. He 
also was " faithful unto death." After seventeen centuries they found 
his skeleton standing erect in a marble niche, clad in its rusty armor — 
the helmet on his empty skull, and his bony fingers still closed upon his 
spear. And next almost to the interest I felt in placing myself on the 
spot where Paul, true to his colors, when all men deserted him, pled 
before the Roman tyrant, was the interest I felt in the niche by the city 
gate where they found the skeleton of one who, in his fidelity to the 
cause of Caesar, sets us an example of faithfulness to the cause of Christ 
— an example it were for the honor of their Master that all his servants 
followed. 



FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS, 

1 . Forgiveness of Enemies. 

(133.) Master, would God they were able to copy his pattern — to copy 
it as faithfully as a warrior did on a late battle-field ! Riding over the 
ground when the fight was done, he came, as he picked his steps among 
the dead, to a body which, stirring, showed some signs of life. The 



54 GEMS OF ILL U8TRA TION. 

bleeding- form wore the dress of a foe. Regardless of that, he said to 
his attendant, " Give him a draught of wine ;" and, as the officer 
stooped down to do so, the wounded soldier, discovering, through the 
mists that were gathering on his dying eye, in this good Samaritan the 
general of the troops against which he had been fighting, raised himself 
on his elbow, drew a pistol, and with deadly hate, fired it at his bene- 
factor's head. Happily the bullet missed its mark ; and the general, so 
soon as he recovered from his surprise, with a forgiveness truly mag- 
nanimous said, " Give it him all the same !" 

2. A Forgiving Man the Finest Image of the Saviour. 

(134.) Foreign to nature, forgiveness is difficult even to grace — so 
difficult, that he who suffers a wrong and feels no impulse to retaliate, 
recalls one without aught of malice, endures cruel wounds which heal 
without festering into corrupt, acrid humors, has, if such grace there be 
on earth, reached its highest pinnacle ; and presents the finest image of 
Him, who, when reviled, reviled not again, and when his mangled form 
lay stretched on the cross, raised his meek eyes to pray, " Father, for- 
give them, for they know not what they do !" 

3. We are to Forgive with our Spirit. 

(135.) Mercy, like the regions of space, has no limit; and as these 
stretch away before the traveller who looks out from the farthest star, 
so the loftiest intellect and largest heart can descry no bounds to 
mercy. Like our Father in heaven, we are to forgive without stint — 
forgiving as we expect to be forgiven. 

4. Christianity Embraces the Bitterest Foe. 

(136.) For though nature, fallen and unrenewed nature, hates her 
enemies, and, thirsting for vengeance, would drag them from the horns 
of the altar, Christianity embraces the bitterest foe in the arms of 
brotherhood. 

5. Christianity is not a Virtue which Belongs to Our Fallen Natures. 

(137.) The nursery however presents a scene where, as through a rent 
in that veil of innocence which throws its sweetest charms over infancy, 
we see the bad passions of our nature. Proud and pleased as it takes 
its first steps across the floor to the mother, kneeling with radiant smiles 
and open arms to receive it, the infant totters, and falls with a lurch 
against chair or table. In such a case it is easier to staunch its wound 
than calm its anger. And yet, though the remedy is worse than the 



FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS. 55 

•disease, that may be done. Revenge, says one, is sweet. There is 
nothing smells so sweet, said Louis XII., as the dead body of an enemy ; 
and blowing up a spark she should have quenched, the foolish nurse or 
mother pretends, by beating chair or table, to avenge the wrong. The 
device succeeds — though it be, after a fashion, casting out devils by 
Beelzebub the prince of devils, and by another voice than His who 
spake peace to the storm of Galilee, calming the passions of that little 
bosom. Alas, her success in soothing anger by gratifying the passion 
for revenge, proves not so much the nurse's skill, as that forgiveness is 
not a virtue that belongs to our fallen nature. 

6. A Forgiving Spirit the Truest Image of God. 

(138.) It is when we bless them that curse us, and love them that hate 
us, and pray for them who despitefully use us, that we present the truest 
image of God, and most clearly prove ourselves to be the children of 
our Father which is in heaven. He makes his sun to shine upon the 
evil and the good, and his rain to fall upon the just and unjust. But 
not because he could not do otherwise. Such miracles as that which he 
wrought on the fleece that was saturated with dew when the ground 
about it was dry, and on the following night lay dry on grass sown with 
pearls or sparkling with diamonds in the morning sun, he could repeat 
on all our fields — turning the face of nature into a broad patent mirror 
of his own secret and unsearchable mind, so that we could tell, by 
the barrenness or fertility of a farm, whether its tenant was, or was not, 
a man of God. As I have seen a gardener play the water of his engine 
on one tree and turn it away from another, God, when he drives his 
cloudy chariot across the heavens, could so guide its motions and dis- 
pense its treasures, as to pour refreshing showers on the fields of one 
man while those of his neighbor were left to wither and die ; and he 
could still dispense the sunbeams which ripen our fruits and fill our 
barns with a band as powerful but as partial as on the day when Goshen 
lay smiling in sunlight, and the neighboring land of Egypt was palled in 
darkness that might be felt. But who surveys a smiling valley from the 
summit of a hill sees all its fields alike robed in verdure or waving with 
golden harvests — God making no distinction between saints and sinners, 
but distributing his treasures of shower and sunshine equally to both. 
And thus in the features of the landscape not less than in the pages of 
the Bible, in the common providence as well as in the inspired precepts 
of God, we learn to embrace all men in the arms of Christian affection, 
and, without excluding even our bitterest enemies, to do them good as 
we have opportunity. This, the peculiar glory of Christianity and 
g;rand lesson of the Cross, shines bright in every sunbeam, and sounds 
in every falling shower. 



56 QEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 
1. God's Full Forgiveness. 

(139.) Be it money or a living man, whatever, falling overboard and 
disappearing beneath the wave, is borne by its weight down and down 
to the bottom of the deep, is certainly, forever, lost ; and therefore 
God employs this figure to set forth his full and everlasting forgiveness 
of his people's sins. Enraptured with the thought, " Who," exclaims 
Micah, "is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity and passeth 
by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage ? He retaineth not 
his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again ; 
he will have compassion upon us ; he will subdue our iniquities : and 
thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." 



FORMS. 
1. Forms, the Drapery of Religion. 

(140.) Let us never forget that forms are not religion, but only its 
drapery ; and that, as they dress children lightly who wish to brace 
their frames, as the laborer throws off his coat to work, and as in the 
ancient games the candidates stepped into the race-course unencumbered 
with many, or heavy, garments, the fewer forms which religion wears, 
consistent with decency and order, the more robust she will grow — she 
will work with greater energy — and, like one of beautiful mould and 
symmetry, she will walk with more native, queenly, grace — when 

Unadorned, adorned the most. 
2. Multiplicity of Forms of Worship an Evil. 

(141.) The Pharisees have left us, not an example to follow, but to 
avoid. How does their case warn the churches against attaching much 
importance to religious forms, either in the way of unreasonably adher- 
ing to such as are old, or unnecessarily introducing such as are new. It 
is in the nature of a religion of many forms to degenerate into one of 
form. By occupying and indeed engrossing the attention of the wor- 
shipper, they withdraw it from the state of his heart, and prove as 
pernicious to true piety as a superabundance of leaves to the plant, 
whose sap is spent on feeding the leaf, to the detriment of the fruit : 
and perhaps some churches might be benefited by a free use of the knife 
with which the gardener prunes away the flush of green wood to increase 
the crop of fruit. I see much danger in a multiplicity, but little, or 
none, in a variety of forms. 



GLORY OF GOD. 57 



GLORY OF GOD. 



1 . Doing All to the Glory of God. 

(142.) Whether I eat or drink, he said, or whatsoever I do — go to a 
feast, or a funeral ; make tents, or sermons ; go to the market to sell 
my work for money, or to the church to sell Christ's free salvation 
without money or price ; earn my bread with the sweat of my brow, or 
accept the hospitality of Gaius, mine host ; make tents at Corinth, or 
fight with wild beasts at Ephesus ; escape from Damascus in a basket, 
or, brought to bay, stand like a lion before Nero at Rome, I do all to 
the glory of God ! 

2. To Glorify God, the Chief End of Man. 

(143.) Without entering into the merits of the different catechisms 
used by the churches, all will admit that none open with an introduction 
more grand than that of the Westminster Divines. Whatever judg- 
ment may be formed of the building itself, no porch or vestibule, no 
introduction could exceed in loftiness and grandeur the manner in which 
it opens — with this question, namely, and its appropriate answer, 
" What is the chief end of man ?" — " The chief end of man is to glorify 
God and enjoy him forever." With that, like the catechism, our life 
should open and should also close ; the glory of God, and not our own, 
being the end we should have in view in all the plans and purposes, the 
actions and arrangements of our life. 

3. Life in all its Phases may be Spent to God's Glory. 

(144.) God's people shall renew their strength and mount up with 
wings as eagles. But it is quite a mistake to fancy that, like that bird, 
which builds her nest on the dizzy crag, and soars aloft, and sails along 
in the paths of the clouds and thunder, religion belongs only to the 
highest, and what are called holy, duties of life. While she rises to its 
highest, she stoops to its meanest, occupations. As well as the seraphs 
that sing before the throne, as the heralds who sound the trumpet of 
the gospel and proclaim salvation to perishing sinners, as the Christian 
who enters his closet to hold communion with God, they are doing the 
work of the Lord who kindle a fire, or sweep a floor, or guide a plough, 
or sit over a desk, or work at a bench, or break stones on the road, 
with a desire to do their work that God may be thereby glorified. 

4. The Earth is Full of the Glory of God. 
(145.) With the Sabbath hills around us, far from the dust and din, 



58 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

the splendor and squalor of the city, we have sat on a rocky bank, to 
wonder at the varied aud rich profusion with which God had clothed the 
scene. Nature, like Joseph, was dressed in a coat of many colors — 
lichens, gray, black and yellow, clad the rock ; the glossy ivy, like a 
child of ambition, had planted its foot on the crag, and, hanging on by 
a hundred arms, had climbed to its stormy summit ; mosses, of hues 
surpassing all the colors of the loom, spread an elastic carpet round the 
gushing fountain ; the wild thyme lent a bed to the weary, and its per- 
fume to the air ; heaths opened their blushing bosoms to the bee ; the 
primrose, like modesty shrinking frozn observation, looked out from its 
leafy shade ; at the foot of the weathered stone the fern raised its 
plumes, and on its summit the foxglove rang his beautiful bells ; while 
the birch bent to kiss the stream, as it ran away laughing to hide itself 
in the lake below, or stretched out her arms to embrace the mountain 
ash and evergreen pine. By a very slight exercise of fancy, in such a 
scene one could see Nature engaged in her adorations, and hear her 
singing, " The earth is full of the glory of God." " How manifold are 
thy works, Lord God Almighty ! in wisdom thou hast made them all." 



5. Two Ways by which God Glorifies His Name. 

(146.) Two methods of glorifying his name are open to God. He is 
free to choose either ; but by the one or the other way he will exact his 
full tale of glory from every man. In Egypt, for instance, he was glo- 
rified in the high-handed destruction of his enemies ; and, in the same 
land, by the high-handed salvation of his people. In the one case he 
proved how strong his arm was to smite, and in the other how strong it was 
to save. He gave Egypt's king — ere he was done with him — a terrible 
answer to his insolent question, " Who is the Lord that I should serve 
him ?" God was sanctified before Pharaoh, when, hurrying to the 
banks of the Nile, and turning pale at the sight, he saw them filled with 
blood — blood brimming in every goblet, and blood flowing in every 
channel. God was again sanctified before Pharaoh, when he saw the 
same skies rain ice and fire. God was again sanctified before Pharaoh, 
when, startled at midnight by a nation's wail, and summoned to the bed 
of his heir and eldest born, he saw him, stiff and dead — smitten by the 
angel of death. And God was again sanctified before Pharaoh, when — 
as he looked along the watery vista — he saw Moses come down in the 
gray of morning to the shore, and watching the last Hebrew safe on 
land, stretch his rod out upon the deep, whose waves, roaring on their 
prey, now rush from either flank on the power of Egypt, and bury pale 
rider and snorting horse — all that bannered army — in their whirling 
waters. 



GOD. 59 

GOD. 

1. God's Forbearance toward Sinners. 

(147.) Like a father who hangs over some unworthy son, and, while 
his heart is torn by contending emotions, hesitates what to do — whether 
once and forever to dismiss him, or to give him another trial — it is most 
touching to see God bending over sinners, and this flood of melting 
pathos bursting from his heart : " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? 
how shall I deliver thee, Israel ? How shall I make thee as Admah, 
how shall I set thee as Zeboim ? Mine heart is turned within me ; my 
repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of 
mine anger ; I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for I am God and 
not man." 

2. Nothing Difficult to God. 

(148.) Are you cast down because, while others have shallows, you 
have depths — dark depths — depths of sorrow, and suffering, to pass 
through ? Be it so : it is as easy for God to march his people through 
the wide, deep sea as across the bed of Jordan. Are your corruptions 
strong ? Be it so : Samson found it as easy to snap a new spun cable 
as withes fresh gathered on the river's bank ; and believe me, it is as 
easy for God to break thy tyrant's strongest as his lightest chain. A 
chain of iron and a thread of flax are all one to God. The blood of thy 
Saviour cleanseth from all sin ; and nothing being impossible, nay not 
even difficult to Omnipotence, be assured, that in your battle, and watch, 
•and work, you shall find this promise true — " My grace is sufficient for 
thee.'" 

3. Cannot Shake off the Presence of God. 

(149.) "We cannot shake off the presence of God ; and when doors 
-are shut, and curtains drawn, and all is still, and darkest night fills our 
■chamber, and we are left alone to the companionship of our thoughts, it 
might keep them pure and holy to say, as if we saw two shining eyes 
looking on us out of the darkness, " Thou, God, seest me." The world 
called him mad who imagined that he saw God's eye looking on him out 
of every star of the sky, and every flower of the earth, and every leaf 
of the forest, from the ground he trod upon, from the walls of his 
lonely chamber, and out of the gloomy depths of night. Mad ! It was 
a blessed and holy fancy. May God help you to feel yourselves at all 
times more in his presence than you are at any time in that of your fel- 
low-men ! 

4. A Pitying Father. 

(150.) Now, it appears to us that this ill-proportioned theology — the 
■doctrine that the only motive in redemption was a regard to God's glory 



60 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

— receives no countenance from the Bible. Does not God " pity us, as 
a father pitieth his children " ? Taught to address him by the endear- 
ing appellation of Father, oh what affection, love, and loving-kindness 
are expressed in that tender term ! And if, on seeing some earthly 
father, whom a child's scream has reached and roused, rush up the blaz- 
ing stairs, or leap into the boiling flood, it were wrong, it were cruel, it 
were a shame, to suspect him of being destitute of affection — of being 
moved to this noble act by no other motive than a regard to his own 
honor — and by no other voice than the calm command of duty — how 
much more wrong were it to harbor such suspicions of ' ' our Father who 
is in heaven." 

5. All Things Praise God. 

(151.) Insects as well as angels, the flowers that spangle the meadow^ 
as well as the stars that spangle the sky, the lamp of the glowworm as 
well as the light of the sun, the lark that sings in the air and the saint 
that is singing in Paradise, the still small voice of conscience as well as 
the thunders that rend the clouds, or the trump that shall rend the 
tomb, these and all things else reveal God's attributes and proclaim his 
praise. 

6. A Refuge for His People. 

(152.) I know an island that stands crowned by its ancient fortalice 
in the middle of a lake, some good bow-shots from the shore. With 
the walls of the old ruin mantled in ivy, and its tower rising grim and 
gray above the foliage of hoary elms, it serves no purpose now but to 
recall old times, and ornament a lovely landscape. But once that island 
and its stronghold were the refuge and life of those whose ordinary resi- 
dence was the castle that, with gates, and bulwarks, and many a tower, 
and floating banner, rose in baronial pride on the shore. When in the 
troublous times of old that was beleaguered, and its defenders could 
hold it out no longer against the force and fury of the siege, they sought 
their boats, and, escaping by the postern gate over waters too deep to 
wade and too broad to swim, threw themselves on the island — within 
the walls of the stout old keep to enjoy peace in the midst of war, and, 
safe beyond the shot of cross-bow, to laugh their enemies to scorn. In 
their hardest plight, and against the greatest numbers, this refuge 
never failed them. Such a refuge and relief his people find in God. 

7. Dice! Is in Light Inaccessible. 

( 153.) The effect of the wind is visible, not the element itself. The 
clouds scud across the sky, the trees swing their arms wildly in the air,, 
aerial waves chase each other in sport across the corn, and the boat,. 



GOOD WORKS. 61 

■catching the gale in her flowing sheet, goes dancing over the billows. 
So — although in a sense infinitely higher — the Invisible is visible ; and 
in his works we see a God, who, seeing all, remains himself unseen. 
He is lost, not in darkness, but in light ; He is a sun that blinds the eye 
which is turned on its burning disk. Angels themselves are unable to 
sustain his glory. They cover their faces with their wings, and use 
them, as a man his hand, to screen their eyes from the ineffable 
effulgence. 

8. Love should Always- be Included in a Definition of God. 

(154.) Divines, notwithstanding, have ventured on a definition of 
(rod ; and, according to the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, 
" God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wis- 
dom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." A very compre- 
hensive definition, no doubt ; yet did it never strike you as strange, that 
there is no mention of love here, and that that is a very remarkable 
omission ? — an omission as remarkable as if a man who described the 
firmament were to leave out the sun, or, painting the human face, made 
it sightless, and gave no place on the canvas to those beaming eyes 
which give life and animation to the features. 



GODLINESS. 

1. Godliness Profitable unto all Things. 

(155.) There is a mine of sound sense in the adage of an old divine, 
*' seriousness is the greatest wisdom, temperance the most efficient 
physic, and a good conscience the very best estate." Early habits of 
self-restraint, total abstinence from all excess, diligence in business, 
attention to our duties, and that tranquillity of mind which piety breeds, 
and which those enjoy who are at peace with God, these, we confidently 
affirm, would do more to abate disease than all our physicians, much 
more to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, than our poor laws and 
charitable institutions, and very much more than any acts of parliament 
to promote the comforts of the people, and preserve the liberties of the 
commonwealth. 



GOOD WORKS. 

1. Abuse of the Doctrine of. 

(156.) By putting them in the place of Christ, his righteousness, and 
saving work, popery brought good works into bad odor — into such dis- 



62 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

repute, indeed, that even Martin Luther, because St. James highly corn- 
mended them, rejected his epistle from the canon of inspired Scripture. 
In their recoil from her errors, men appeared at the period of the Refor- 
mation who burst asunder the bounds of all morality. Denouncing the 
doctrine of good works as a delusion of Satan and an encroachment on 
the freedom wherewith Christ makes his people free, they openly 
indulged in the grossest vices ; saying, that with their " life hid with 
Christ in God," these polluted them no more than the gutter does the 
kernel inside the nut which falls into it. Nor has Rome only taught 
that salvation is more of works than of faith. Last century saw a sad 
eclipse of sound doctrine in almost all Protestant churches. Their pul- 
pits were occupied by men who, ignorant of the truth, or ashamed to 
own their Lord and to defend his cause, discoursed a cold morality ; fed 
the people with empty husks ; and putting good works, as they called 
them, in the place of the cross, held up heathen virtues rather than 
Christ and Christian graces to admiration. And under that law of 
action and reaction which makes the human mind, as well as a pendu- 
lum, swing from one extreme to the opposite, the result was what might 
have been expected. From being over-valued, good works came to be 
under-valued ; theirs the fate of the brazen serpent, which, from being 
an object of idolatry, was treated with a measure of contempt — ground 
to powder, and called Nehustan, or a piece of brass. I cannot other- 
wise explain the carelessness which many display about Christian works, 
and the hopes they entertain of getting to heaven without having ever 
given such proofs of conversion as they afford. Nor can I otherwise 
account for the positive aversion which some good people show, not cer- 
tainly to doing, but to hearing of good works. 

2. A Disrespectful Treatment of 

(157.) It is told, for example, of an eminent saint, how, on one who 
sat by his dying bed delicately alluding to important services which he 
had rendered to the cause of religion, he started — started as if he had 
heard a serpent hiss ; aud turning round with an expression of pain and 
horror on his face, besought his friend, as he loved him, to make no 
mention of his poor unworthy works. And I have seen it recorded to 
the praise of another, as indicating the healthiest and holiest state a man 
could live or die in, that to those who spoke of his good works he 
instantly replied, " I take my good and bad works, and casting them 
into one heap, fly from both to Christ !" Now, though seeing in our 
best works much to make us blush, and nothing whatever, since it is by 
grace we are what we are, to make us vain, I venture to say that good 
works, by which I mean, works done for the glory of the Father, from 
love to the Son, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit, deserve a more 



GOOD WORKS. 03 

respectful treatment. It is the exaggeration of a right feeling, and a 
false humility which casts them into the same heap with our sins. Our 
trust for pardon and acceptance should rest entirely in the blood of 
Christ ; yet the works which have pleased our heavenly Father and 
profited our fellow-creatures are to be recalled with thankfulness on a 
dying bed. Fruits of the Spirit, which glorify not us, but Him through 
whose grace they have been wrought, they are clear and comfortable 
evidence of our being children of God. 

3. St. PauVs Estimate of. 

(158.) It was not thus, as some have done, that Paul spoke of good 
works. It may be news to many, yet it is true that he applies the same 
lofty terms to them which he uses to proclaim and enforce salvation by 
the blood of Christ. To Timothy he says, "This is a faithful saying, 
and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners ;" and to Titus he says, employing not an equivalent but 
the identical expression, "This is a faithful saying, and these things I 
will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God 
might be careful to maintain good works.'-' On death-beds, on the 
deck, wherever loved ones tear themselves from each other's arms, at all 
partings, the last are not the least important words ; and it is with 
exhortations to good works that Paul takes farewell of the church of 
Philippi. " Finally, brethren," he says, " whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
good report : if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think 
on these things." Elsewhere, placing good works on a yet loftier plat- 
form, in language the strongest possible according them yet higher hon- 
ors, he says, " God is not unrighteous to forget our work ami labor of 
love showed toward his name :" and, after that, it were surely no pre- 
sumption to say that it cannot be wrong for us modestly to remember 
what God will not forget ; and further still, that it cannot be right for 
us to be careless of such works as this great preacher of faith says are 
ordained of God, and bids us be careful to maintain. 

4. N~o Time for Doing Good. 

(159.) Some allege that they can find no leisure from their other 
duties for works of Christian charity. They would not say so, did they 
sufficiently appreciate the value of time, and were as careful of its frag- 
ments, as those who work in gold are of its dust. I have found that 
where the goldsmith sits with graver or hammer in hand, a leathern apron, 
bound to his body, stretches between it and the bench to catch the 



€4 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

smallest atom that may start from his tools — there, the leather and the 
cloths he uses for imparting a brilliant polish to the metal, are burned 
to recover the minute particles which have been rubbed into their text- 
ures — there, the floor is carefully swept — there its dust is gathered that 
it may yield up to the fires of a glowing furnace the smallest atom 
which the dropping of the goldsmith's tool, or the shaking of his hand, 
has cast by chance upon the floor. The value of gold recovered last year 
from the sweepings of the floor of one single workshop in Edinburgh 
amounted to £120. I was astonished at that : but how much more 
astonished would people be at the vast amount of good they could do 
in a life-time, or even in a single year, were they, as careful in respect 
of time as these workmen are in respect of gold, to " gather up the 
fragments that nothing might be lost." 

5. Cannot Earn Salvation by our Works. 

(160.) I do not mean to disparage good works. Christians are to be 
careful to maintain them, and to " make their light so to shine before 
men that they, seeing their good works, may glorify their Father which 
is in heaven." But we are on the wrong road altogether if we are at- 
tempting to earn or deserve salvation by these. No gathered sum of 
human merits, of virtues, prayers, or charities can, like the accumula- 
tion of money that forms the price of an estate, purchase heaven. We 
have to buy, no doubt, but not after the world's fashion. The price, 
on the contrary, which we are required to pay is not virtues and merits, 
but just that we abandon all trust in these ; give up in them what we 
may have reckoned goodly pearls ; and consent to be saved as poor, 
lost, undone sinners — whose type is the beggar that, clad in filthy rags 
and knocking timidly a1 our door, stands before us, making no appeal 
but to our compassion, and urging no plea whatever but our mercy and 
his own great misery. 

6. A Pestilent Heresy, 

(161.) The truth is, that to set little store by good works is an im- 
moral and pestilent heresy. The works by which we recommend relig- 
ion and adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour, the works which spring 
from love to Christ and aim at the glory of God, the works by which a 
good man blesses society and leaves the world better than he found it, 
are not the " filthy rags" of Holy Scripture. No filthy rags, but the 
gracious and graceful ornaments of a blood-bought Church ; these, on 
the contrary, are the " gold of Ophir," " the raiment of needlework" 
in which His bride, apparelled as a queen, stands at her Lord's right 
Jiand — a lovely form, in a blaze of beauty and of jewels. 



GOSPEL, THE. 65 



V. No True Faith without Works. 



(162.) The fruit is now, as it shall be hereafter, the test of the tree. 
There is no such thing as faith without works. Without these, your 
profession is a lie, your faith is dead, your hope is a delusion. It is a 
delusion and a snare, like the phosphoric light, the product of putrefac- 
tion, which, to the terror of superstitious peasants, and the destruction 
of unwary travellers, gleams and burns at night, above the pool in 
whose dark depths life has been lost, and a body, evolving gases capable 
of spontaneous combustion, is going to decay. 

8. God does not Forget our Good Works. 

(163.) Who ponders the Apostle's words aright, and forms a proper 
■estimate of their importance, will be less surprised than some, no doubt, 
are at the manner in which Nehemiah mentions his good works in his 
prayers. Addressing God, he speaks of them in a way which many 
good men never ventured on. When counselled to fly, he spurned the 
coward advice : and asking, Shall such a man as I flee ? against the 
-enemies of his God, his faith, his country, and his countrymen — 

stood like an iron pillar strong, 
and steadfast as a wall of brass. 

But some who admire the boldness with which, amid a crowd of ene- 
mies, he faces man, may think his bearing before God over-bold ; and 
that he trode the borders of presumption — when, relating his pious and 
patriotic deeds, he addresses Jehovah, saying, " Wipe not out my good 
deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for the offices 
thereof !" Did such a thought occur to them when engaged in prayer, 
many would strangle it in their hearts — regarding it as a suggestion of 
the devil ; a temptation to be resisted, if not a sin to be mourned ; as 
only suited to the lips of one who distributed his alms to the sound of 
a trumpet, and prayed in corners of the street that he might be praised 
of men, and said, expressing the sentiments of a heart inflated with 
pride, l thank thee, O God, that I am not as other men are, extortion- 
ers, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican ! Yet when Nehemiah 
prayed, " Remember me, O God, concerning this," he only asked him 
to remember what Paul assures us God is not so unrighteous as to 
forget. 



GOSPEL, THE. 

1. The Gospel a Stream of Mercy. 

(164.) Now, what this river, which turns barren sand into the richest 
•soil, is to Egypt, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to the world. It flows 



66 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

through the earth, the " river of the waters of life." Whether they 
now bloom in heaven, or are still in the nurseries of earth, every plant 
of grace owes to the Gospel its existence and renown. Observe, how- 
ever, that — although the parent of those harvests which angels shall reap 
and the heavens receive — no more in the case of the Gospel than of the 
Nile does the bounty of heaven suspend or supersede human exertions. 
No ; but on earth's improvement of heaven's bounty the blessings of 
both are commonly suspended. " The hand of the diligent maketh 
rich :" and as it is according to the industry or indolence of the inhabi- 
tants, that the Nile flows through barren sands, or waters smiling fields, 
so is it with the Gospel. It is a blessing only where it is sedulously and 
prayerfully improved, and when, like the overflowings of the Nile, 
which are conducted along their channels to irrigate its shores, those 
living waters, through the use of means, are turned on our hearts and 
habits. " Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers- 
of the law shall be justified." 

2. The Effects of the Gospel. 

(165.) Accompanied with the blessing from on high and received into 
the heart by faith, the Gospel alters both our character and condition — 
making the rude gentle, the coarse refined, the impure holy, the selfish 
generous — working a greater transformation than if a felon of the prison 
were to change into a courtier of the palace, or the once ragged boy who 
had been educated to crime on the streets were to wear a star on his 
manly breast and stand in the brilliant circle that surrounds a throne. 

3. Mysteries of the Gospel. 

(166.) It is ever to be borne in mind, that while the Gospel has shal- 
lows through which a child may wade and walk on his way to heaven, 
it has deep, dark, unfathomed pools, which no eye can penetrate, and 
where the first step takes a giant beyond his depth. 

4. Love the Curative Element of the Gospel. 

(167.) The Gospel, like most medicines for the body, is of a com- 
pound nature ; but, whatever else enters into its composition, its curative 
element is love. No man yet was ever driven to heaven ; he must be 
drawn to it, and I wish to draw you. The Gospel has terror in it, no 
doubt. But it is like our atmosphere — occasionally riven by the thun- 
der and illuminated by the fatal flash — it is at times the path of the 
stealthy pestilence — charged with elements of destruction, and impreg- 
nated with the seeds of disease ; but how much more is not a great 
magazine of health, filled with the most harmonious sounds, fragrant 



GOSPEL, THE. 67 

with the sweetest odors, hung with golden drapery, the pathway of sun- 
beams, the womb of showers, the feeder of flowing streams, full of 
God's goodness, and the fountain of all Earth's life ! And, just as in 
that atmosphere, which God has wrapped round this world, Ihere is 
much more health than sickness, much more food than famine, much 
more life than death, so in the Bible there is much more love than 
terror. 

5. Suited to and will Prevail in all Lands. 

(168.) A single grain of corn would, were the produce of each season 
sown again, so spread from field to field, from country to country, from 
continent to continent, as in the course of a few years to cover the whole 
surface of the earth with one wide harvest, employing all the sickles, 
filling all the barns, and feeding all the mouths in the world. Such an 
event, indeed, could not happen in nature, because each latitude has its 
own productions, and there is no plant formed to grow alike under the 
sun of Africa, and amid the snows of Greenland. It is the glory of the 
Gospel, and one of the evidences of its divine origin that it can ; and, 
unless prophecy fail, that it shall. There is not a shore which shall not 
be sown with this seed ; not a land but shall yield harvests of glory to 
God and of souls for heaven. By revolutions that are overturning all 
things, by war's rude and bloody share, and otherwise, God is breaking 
up the fallow ground, and ploughing the earth for a glorious seed-time. 
The seed that sprang up in Bethlehem shall wave over arctic snows and 
desert sands : and as every shore is washed by one sea, and every land 
that lies between the poles is girdled by one atmosphere, and every drop 
of blood that flows in human veins belongs to one great family of 
brothers, so in God's set time men of every color and tongue shall cher- 
ish a common faith, and trust in a common Saviour. 

6. The Gospel should be Examined in the Broad Shadoios of the Old 
Economy. 

(169.) We are aware that the Mosaic economy, and many of God's 
dealings with his ancient people, were but the shadows of good things 
to come ; and that, when the things are come, as come they certainly 
are, you may meet us on the very threshold with this question, Why 
look at the shadow when you possess the substance ? However valued 
in his absence the portrait of a son may be, what mother, when he is 
folded in her arms, and she has his living face to look on, turns to the 
picture ? What artist studies a subject in twilight, when he may see it 
in the blaze of day ? True — true at least in general. Yet such study 
has its advantages. It not seldom happens that a portrait brings to view 



68 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION: 

some shade of expression which we had not previously observed in the 
face of the veritable man ; and when some magnificent form of archi- 
tecture, or the serried ridges and rocky needles of a mountain, have 
stood up between us and the last lights of day, we have found, that 
although the details, the minor beauties, of fluted columns or frowning 
crags were lost in the shades of evening, yet, drawn in sharp and simple 
outline against a twilight sky, the effect of the whole was more impres- 
sive than when eyed in the glare of day. 

(170.) Thus it may be well, occasionally at least, to examine the 
Gospel in the broad shadows and strongly defined outlines of an old 
economy ; and through God's government of his ancient people, to 
study the motives, the nature, and the ends of his dealings with our- 
selves. 



GRACE. 



1. Grace Gives a Holy Bent. 

(171.) While the grace of God changes all who are brought in con- 
version under its influence, it does not impart any new power or pas- 
sion, but works by giving to those we already have a holy bent ; by 
impressing on them a heavenly character. It did not give John his 
warm affections ; but it fixed them on his beloved Master — sanctifying 
his love. It did not inspire Nehemiah with the love of country ; but it 
made him a holy patriot. It did not give Dorcas a woman's heart, her 
tender sympathy with suffering ; but it associated charity with piety, 
and made her a holy philanthropist. It did not give Paul his genius, 
his resistless logic, and noble oratory ; but it consecrated them to the 
cause of Christ — touching his lips as with a live coal from the altar, it 
made him such a master of holy eloquence that he swayed the multitude 
at his will, humbled the pride of kings, and compelled his very judges 
to tremble. 

2. Salvation by Grace Humbling but Encouraging. 

(172.) If this doctrine is humbling to our pride, it is full of encour- 
agement to a poor sinner's hope. It lays me down, but it is to lift me 
up. It throws me on the ground, that, like Antaeus, the giant of fable, 
I may rise stronger than I fell. It is not for our sake that we are 
saved. If Mercy stoops to the lowest guilt, oh then there is hope of 
salvation for me — for a man who has nothing that he can call his own 
but misery and sin ; I will not sit here to perish ; but following a 



GRACE. 69 

Manasseh and a Magdalene, a dying thief, and a blood-stained Saul, I 
■will join the throng that, called from highways and hedges, are pouring 
— a ragged crowd — into the marriage supper of the Lamb. 



3. The Affluence of God's Grace. 

(173.) The grace of God is marked by the affluence which character- 
izes all his works. What abundance in that sun which has shone so 
many thousand years, and yet presents no appearance of exhaustion, no 
sign of decay ? What abundance of stars bespangle the sky ; of leaves 
clothe the forest ; of raindrops fall in the shower ; of dews sparkle on 
the grass ; of snow-flakes whiten the winter hills ; of flowers adorn the 
meadow ; of living creatures that, walking on the ground, or playing 
in the waters, or burrowing in the soil, or dancing in the sunbeams, or 
flying in the air, find a home in every element — but that red fire in 
which, type of hell, all beauty perishes, and all life expires ? 

(174.) This lavish profusion of life, and forms, and beauty, in 
nature, is an emblem of the affluence of grace, of God's saving, sancti- 
fying grace. 

4. Assimilating Element of Grace. 

(175.) Moisture dims the polished blade, and turns its bright steel 
into dull, red rust ; fire changes the sparkling diamond into black coal 
and gray ashes ; disease makes loveliness loathsome, and death converts 
the living form into a mass of foul corruption. But the peculiarity of 
grace is this, that like leaven it changes whatever it is applied to into its 
own nature. For as leaven turns meal into leaven, so divine grace im- 
parts a gracious character to the heart ; and this is what I call its assim- 
ilating element. 

5. Grace, though Slow in Progress, yet Certain. 

(176.) Though grace, unlike sin, and like leaven, is slow in its prog- 
ress, it shall change the whole man betimes ; and the motto which 
flashed in gold on the High Priest's forehead shall be engraven on our 
reason, heart, and fancy ; on our thoughts, desires, and affections ; on 
our lips, and hands, and feet ; on our wealth, and power, and time ; on 
our body and soul — the whole man shall be " Holiness to the Lord." 

6. The Life of the Soul. 

(177.) The circulation of water is to the world what that of blood is 
to the body, and that of grace to the soul. It is its life. Withdraw it, 



70 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

and all that lives would die ; forests, fields, beasts, man himself would 
die. This world would become one vast grave. Water constitutes as 
much the life as the beauty of the landscape. It is true both in a spir- 
itual and in an earthly sense, that the world lives because heaven weeps 
over it. It was Christ's choicest figure of himself, when, turning on 
his own person the eyes of thousands, as on a perennial fountain — one 
never sealed by winter's frost, nor dried by summer sans — free, full, 
patent to all, he stood up on the last and great day of the feast, and 
cried, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." 

7. The All-Sufficiency of Grace. 

(178.) As with an arch, the grace of God stands the firmer, the more 
weight you lay on it ; its sufficiency, at least, will be the more evident ; 
the more clearly you will see the truth of the promise, My grace is suffi- 
cient for thee. With the well ever full and ever flowing, our vessels 
need never be empty. Whether, therefore, you want more faith, more 
purity of heart or peace of mind, more light or love, a humbler or a 
holier spirit, a calmer or a tenderer conscience, a livelier sense of 
Christ's excellences or of your own unworthiness, more tears for Christ's 
feet or more honors for his head, fear not to draw, to hope, to ask, too 
much. 

8. God's Grace Exhausted. 

(179.) Myriads of leaves clothe the forest, myriads of flowers be- 
spangle the meadow, myriads of insects dance in the sunbeams, myriads 
of birds sing in the woodlands, myriads of fish swim in stream and 
ocean, myriads of stars glitter in the nightly sky, and every leaf is as 
perfect in form, every flower as beautiful in colors, every living creature 
fashioned with such skill, and every burning star guided through space 
with as much care, as if it engrossed the entire attention of God, and 
there was not another but itself within the bounds of his universe. The 
number of objects our hearts can hold, or our arms embrace, or our 
eyes watch, or our fortunes enrich, or our bounty pension, is limited ; 
confined within a narrow range, is small at the largest and few at the 
most. It is not so with Him who is mighty to save, abundant in good- 
ness and truth. The supplies of his grace and mercy are unexhausted 
and exhaustless. Their type shines in that sun which for six thousand 
years has shed its light on seas and continents, on crowded cities and 
lonely solitudes, on burning deserts and fields of ice, on palaces and 
cottages, on ragged beggars and sceptred kings, on all countries and 
classes of men, and with fires fed we know not how, shines to-day as 
bright as ever — his eye not dim, nor his natural strength abated. And 



GRACE. 71 

as this is but an image, and a faint image, of God, well may his servant 
assure us, there shall be no want to them that fear him. None — 
neither for the body nor the soul ; neither for time nor eternity. 

9. Grace of God Above Circumstances. 

(180.) I have seen a tree crowning the summit of a naked rock ; and 
there it stood — in search of food sending its roots out over the bare 
stone, and down into every cranny — securely anchored by these moor- 
ings to the stormy crag. We have wondered how it grew up there, 
amid such rough nursing, how it could have survived many a wintry 
blast, and where, indeed, it found food or footing. Yet, like one 
familiar with hardships and adversities, it has grown and lived ; it has 
kept its feet when the pride of the valley has bent to the storm ; and, 
like brave men, who think not of yielding, but nail their colors to the 
mast, it has maintained its proud position, and kept its green flag wav- 
ing on nature's topmost battlements. More wonderful than this, how- 
ever, is it to see where the grace of God will live and grow. Tender 
exotic ! plant brought from a more genial clime ! one would suppose 
that it would require the kindliest nursing and most propitious circum- 
stances ; yet look here — A Daniel is bred for God, and for the bravest 
services in his cause, in no pious home of Israel ; he grows in saintship 
amid the impurities and effeminacy of a heathen palace. Paul was a 
persecutor, and is called to be a preacher — was a murderer, and be- 
comes a martyr ; once, no pharisee so proud, now no publican so hum- 
ble. 

10. Glorious Triumphs of Grace. 

(181.) Take two instances. Look at the thief on the cross. It is 
from the very edge of the pit, just as he is going over, that the mighty 
hand of Jesus plucks him. Who that heard that robber with his fellow 
and the base crowd insult a dying Saviour, who that saw him nailed 
to his cross, a daring, despairing, hardened ruffian, could have believed 
it possible that a few hours thereafter he would be singing songs in 
Paradise ? Yet the sun of that day had not set behind Judah's hills ere 
a blaspheming wretch ripe for hell was converted, saved, and sanctified ; 
and had taken his flight to heaven to tell to listening angels what mercy 
had done for him — how Christ had saved him at the uttermost. Look 
also at Paul. The old bed of the sea laid bare for the foot of Israel, the 
dry rock changed into a gushing fountain, the rotting tenant of the 
tomb rising at Christ's word, to appear, once divested of the grave- 
clothes, with life sparkling in his eye and health blooming on his rosy 
cheek, did not attest God's power over dead matter more plainly than 
Paul's conversion attests his power over a depraved heart. What more 



72 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

incredible than that yonder man who, with a fierceness, a firmness of 
purpose, and an intensity of hatred uncommon to the ingenuous years 
of youth, stands glutting his eyes with Stephen's blood, would ere long 
be Christ's greatest and most devoted apostle ; and would die, after a 
life of unparalleled sufferings, a martyr in the very cause for which he 
sheds the first martyr's blood ? Yet so it was 



HEART, THE 

1. Cultivation of the Heart. 

(182.) Some who carefully cultivate their fields, or their gardens, or 
their business, or their minds, take no pains whatever to cultivate their 
hearts. 

2. The Heart the Same in all Men. 

(183.) There is one argument which these unhired, impartial, and in- 
dependent defenders of our faith — these high-priests of science — did 
not, perhaps, feel warranted to employ, but which presents to us the 
most convincing evidence of a common origin. It lies where the tests 
of chemistry cannot detect it, nor the knife of the anatomist reach it, nor 
the eye of the physiognomist discover it, nor the instruments of the 
phrenologist measure it. Its place is in the inner mau ; it lies in the 
depths of the soul ; and comes out in this remarkable fact, that, 
although the hues of the skin differ, and the form of the skull and the 
features of the face are cast in different moulds, the features, color, and 
character of the heart are the same in all men. 

3. The Root of Evil. 

(184.) By this action, or by smiting on the thigh, the impassioned 
natives of the East expressed the deepest sorrow. But these sound- 
ing blows expressed more than sorrow. They said, as they fell thick 
and heavy on his bosom, Here lies the root of all my sins — O this 
hard, foul, wicked heart ! My life has been bad, but it has been 
worse — here lies the inner spring of all these polluted streams ! These 
blows were inarticulate prayers. They sounded forth to God's ear such 
wishes as these : " Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit 
within me. ' ' 

4. Coldness of the Unrenewed Heart. 

(185.) The lapidary, using his tongue to test the temperature, can, 
by that simple means, tell whether the seeming jewel is paste, or a real 
gem ; and when our eye has been deceived by the skill of the painter, 



HEART, THE. 73 

the sense of touch has informed us, that what seemed marble was only 
wood. It is a common saying, " As cold as a stone." But what stone 
so cold as that in man's breast ? Cold is the bed of the houseless, who 
lies stretched on the wintry pavement, and cold the cell within whose 
<lank stone walls the shivering prisoner is immured ; but colder far by 
nature is this heart of ours to God and Christ. We are born lovers of 
pleasure rather than lovers of God. God is not an object of our love, 
nor do we make any return to Jesus for his warm and fond affection. 
Blessed Lord ! he had many a cold lodging on this ungrateful earth ; 
his couch was oft the open field, where his locks were wet with the dew& 
of night ; drenched with the spray of the sea and the lashing rain, his 
weary frame found sleep on the hard benches of a fisher's boat ; yet on 
these he lay not on so cold a bed as he would find in the dark, dreary 
chambers of an unrenewed heart. 

5. Deceitful Above All Things. 

(186.) The dank mossy sward is deceitful : its fresh and glossy carpet, 
invites the traveller to leave the rough moorland track ; and, at the first 
step, horse and rider are buried in the morass. The sea is deceitful. 
What rage, what furious passions sleep in that placid bosom ! and how 
often — as Vice serves her used-up victims — does she throw the bark that 
she received into her wanton arms, a wreck upon the shore. 

(187.) The desert is deceitful : it mocks the traveller with its mirage. 
How life kindles in his drooping eye, as he sees the playful waves chase 
each other to the shore, and the plumes of the palm waving in the watery 
mirror ! Faint, weary, perishing with thirst, he turns to bathe and 
drink ; and, exhausting his remaining strength in pursuit of a phantom, 
finds, unhappy man ! that he has turned to die. 

(188.) Deceitful above sward, or sea, or sky, or enchanted desert, is 
the heart of man ; nor do I know a more marked or melancholy proof 
of this than that which our light treatment of such weighty matters as sin 
and judgment affords. There is no exaggeration in the prophet's lan- 
guage — " The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wicked. ' ' 

6. Desperately Wicked. 

(189.) Near by a stone — a mass of rock that had fallen from the over- 
hanging crag — which had some wild flowers growing in its fissures, and 
on its top the foxglove, with its spike of beautiful but deadly flowers, 
we once came upon an adder as it lay in ribbon coil, basking on the 
sunny ground. At our approach the reptile stirred, uncoiled itself, and 



74 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

raising its venomous head, with eyes like burning coals, it shook its 
cloven tongue, and, hissing, gave signs of battle. Attacked, it retreat- 
ed ; and, making for that gray stone, wormed itself into a hole in its 
side. Its nest and home were there. And in looking on that shattered 
rock — fallen from its primeval elevation — with its flowery but fatal 
charms, the home and nest of the adder, where nothing grew but pois- 
oned beauty, and nothing dwelt but a poisoned brood, it seemed to us 
an emblem of that heart which the text describes as a stone, which 
experience proves is a habitation of devils, and which the prophet pro- 
nounces to be desperately wicked. 

7. A New One Necessary. 

(190.) So far as man's natural and inherent powers are concerned, 
his heart sustained an irreparable injury by the Fall. Sin is a disease 
which our constitution has no power to throw off, and which no human 
skill can remove. The preacher is here assisted by none of that " heal- 
ing power of nature" which is the physician's best ally. Not only so, 
but God himself — with whom in a sense all things are possible, and to 
whom nothing is too hard — does not attempt its repair. In the work of 
conversion, it is not an old heart which is to be mended, but a new one 
which is to be given. In any attempt to patch up the old garment, the 
new cloth is lost, and the rent gapes but wider. On the old, frail, 
musty bottle, heaven wastes not her costly wine. The truth is, man 
does not admit of being repaired ; and the more we become acquainted 
with our hearts, the more ready shall we be to describe their desperate 
and deplorable condition in the words of Holy Scripture — " The heart 
is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." 

8. What the New Heart Explains. 

(191.) Implanted at conversion, entailed on no heir, the natural in- 
heritance of no man, this heart is found in those only who, born again 
of the Holy Ghost, have received the truth in the love of it. Its pres- 
ence or absence explains what is otherwise inexplicable — in the same 
family, some reprobate and other religious ; among disciples of the same 
Master, a Judas and a John ; hanging one on each side of the same 
cross, an impenitent and a penitent thief ; leaving the same church after 
listening to the same sermon, one sinner converted and another 
hardened. 

9. Delicate Sensibility of the New Heart. 

(192.) The heart of grace is endowed with a delicate sensibility, and 
vibrates to the slightest touch of a Saviour's fingers. How does the 
truth of God affect it now ! A stone no longer, it melts under the 



HEATHEN, THE. 75 

heavenly fire — a stone no longer, it bends beneath the hammer of the 
word ; no longer like the rugged rock, on which rains and sunbeams 
were wasted, it receives the impression of God's power, and retains the 
footprints of his presence. Like the flowers that close their eyes at 
night, but waken at the voice of morning, like the earth that gapes in 
summer drought, the new heart opens to receive the bounties of grace 
and the gifts of heaven. 

10. An Outward Resembling an Inward Change. 

(193.) As by sleight of hand and necromantic trick, Egypt's magicians 
produced a set of mimic miracles, that were clever counterfeits of those 
which God wrought by the hand of Moses, may not other causes than 
true love of holiness or godly hatred of sin work such an outward, as 
bears some considerable likeness to a saving change ? In matters of 
religion, beware of confounding an almost with an altogether Christian. 



HEATHEN, THE. 

1. Stupidity of the Heathen. 

(194.) They live in darkness so gross, that they do not distinguish 
purity from pollution. They have no more idea of the way of salvation 
than the blind have of colors. They do not know God. Some worship 
.a cow ; some a serpent ; some a stone ; some the very Devil. In them, 
reason crouches to adore a beast ; and man, made in the image of God, 
hows his erect form and noble head before a lifeless block. When, 
from the study of that instinctive and unerring wisdom with which the 
lower animals — the stork in the period of her migrations, the bee in the 
-construction of its cell — act in their allotted spheres, we turn to this 
•amazing, and all but incredible senselessness and stupidity of man, what 
an illustration have we of the saying, " If therefore the light that is in 
thee be darkness, how great is that darkness !" 

2. Guilt of Neglecting the Heathen. 

(195.) There are strong pleas which the poor heathen may advance 
in extenuation of their guilt ; and, stepping forward with some con- 
fidence to judgment, may urge upon a just and merciful as well as holy 
God. 

(196.) They may say, we knew no better ; no man cared for our 
^souls. Great God ! when thy followers landed on our happy shores, 
they brought no olive branch or Bible, but fire, and sword, and slavery ; 



76 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

and on the back of those who, bearing thy name, oppressed us, robbed 
us, enslaved us, and left us to die ignorant of thy love, we lay our 
guilt. Let them answer for us ; place these Christians at thy bar ; ask 
them, " Where is thy brother Abel ?" and on their heads, not on ours,, 
let thy dread justice fall. 

(197.) What value may be given to these pleas — what weight they 
may carry at a tribunal where much will be exacted of those who have 
got much, and little asked where little has been given — it is not for us 
to say. The Judge of all the earth will do right. 



HEAVEN. 

1. An Abhorrent Vacuum to the Unsanctified. 

(198.) You hope to go to heaven ! I hope you will. But, unless- 
your heart is sanctified and renewed, what were heaven to you ? an ab- 
horrent vacuum. The day that took you there would end all enjoyment, 
and throw you, a castaway, upon a solitude more lonely than a desert 
island. Neither angels nor saints would seek your company, nor would 
you seek theirs. Unable to join in their hallowed employments, to sym- 
pathize with, or even to understand their holy joys, you would feel more 
desolate in heaven than we have done in the heart of a great city, with- 
out one friend, jostled by crowds, but crowds who spoke a language we 
did not understand, and were aliens alike in dress and manners, in lan- 
guage, blood, and faith. 

2. The Sinner Out of Place in Heaven. 

(199.) The most ignorant and debased of our city outcasts, the most 
wretched and loathsome wanderer of the streets, is not so unfit to be re- 
ceived into the holy bosom of a Christian family, as you are, by nature, 
to be received into the kingdom of heaven. A sinner there were more 
out of place than a ragged beggar in a royal palace, where, all gazing at 
his appearance with astonishment, arid shrinking back from his defiling 
touch, he rudely thrusts himself within the brilliant circle. Compared 
with the difference between a man, as grace finds him, and heaven gets- 
him, how feeble are all earthly distinctions ! They sink into nothing. 
So unheavenly, in truth, is our nature, that unless we were made meet 
for the inheritance, we were no honor to it, nor were it any happiness- 
to us. 

3. Emblems of the New Jerusalem. 

(200.) Gold paves its streets, and around them rise walls of jasper. 
Earth holds no such city, nor the depths of ocean such pearls as form. 



HEA VEN. 77 

its gates ; no storms sweep its sea ; no winter strips its trees ; no thun- 
der shakes its serene and cloudless sky ; the day there never darkens 
into night ; harps and palms are in the hands, while crowns of glory 
flash and blaze upon the heads of its sinless inhabitants. From this 
distant and stormy orb, as the dove eyed the ark, faith eyes this glori- 
ous vision, and, weary of the strife, longing to be gone, cries, " Oh 
that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly away and be at rest !" 

4. The Two Bolts which Bar the Door of. 

(201.) While salvation is the one thing needful, the two things need- 
ful to it are sin pardoned' and the soul renewed. For, suppose that 
your sins were pardoned, but that your heart remained in its corruption, 
the door of heaven remains shut ; because, " Without holiness no man 
shall see the Lord." Then, again, although your hearts were renewed, 
unless your sins also were pardoned, that door stands shut ; because of 
the sentence, ' ' The soul that sinneth shall die." The door of heaven, 
like that of some treasure-chest or gate of citadel, guarded with jealous 
care, is thus barred by two strong bolts ; " There shall in no wise enter 
into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, 
or maketh a lie ; but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." 
Both bolts must be drawn before we can enter ; we must be pardoned as 
well as renewed, and renewed as well as pardoned. 

5. Heaven Greatly Made up of Little Children. 

(202.) Heaven is greatly made up of little children — sweet buds that 
have never blown, or which death has plucked from a mother's bosom to 
lay on his own cold breast, just when they were expanding, flower-like, 
from the sheath, and opening their engaging beauties in the budding 
time and spring of life. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." In- 
deed it may be that God does with his heavenly garden as we do with 
our own gardens. He may chiefly stock it from nurseries, and select 
for transplanting what is yet in its young and tender age — flowers before 
they have bloomed, and trees ere they begin to bear. 

6. We shall See Jesus there. 

(203.) Some may call the publican's a childish curiosity. But we 
sympathize with Zaccheus, when, having heard that Jesus was passing, 
he left the receipt of custom to join the throng ; but, lost there, shot 
ahead of the multitude, and climbed a friendly sycamore, to catch a pass- 
ing glance at the wonder-working man. We esteem it not the least of 
the blessings which shall be enjoyed in heaven, that we shall see Jesus 
there ; see him as he is ; gaze with fond, adoring love on the very face 



78 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

and form which our faith has so often tried to fancy, and painters of the 
greatest genius have utterly failed to express. 

7. The Wonder is that any Get to Heaven. 

(204.) When I think of the sins to be forgiven, and the difficulties to 
be overcome, the wonder seems not that few get to heaven, but that any 
get there. We have read of voyages, where for nights the sailors 
enjoyed no sleep, and for days saw no sun. Lying at one time becalmed 
beneath a fiery sky, at another time shivering amid fields of ice ; with 
sunken rocks around them, and treacherous currents sweeping them on 
dangerous reefs ; exposed to sudden squalls, long, dark nights, and 
fearful tempests, the wonder was that their battered ship ever reached 
the port. 

(205.) Yet there is never a bark drops anchor in heaven, nor a weary 
voyager steps out on its celestial strand, but is a still greater wonder. 
Save for th" assurance that what God hath begun he will finish — that 
what concerns his people he will perfect — oh, how often would our 
hope of final blessedness altogether expire ! 

8. Is Obtained by Heritage. 

(206.) In the terms of a court of law, heaven is the saints' not by 
conquest but by heritage. Won by another arm than theirs, it presents 
the strongest imaginable contrast to the spectacle seen in England's 
palace that day when the king demanded to know of his assembled 
nobles, by what title they held their lands ? " What title ? " At the rash 
question a hundred swords leapt from their scabbards. Advancing on the 
alarmed monarch — " By these," they replied, " we won, and by these 
we will keep them." How different the scene which heaven presents ! 
All eyes are fixed on Jesus ; every look is love ; gratitude glows in everv 
bosom, aud swells in every song ; now with golden harps they sound the 
Saviour's praise ; and now, descending from their thrones to do him 
homage, they cast their crowns in one glittering heap at the feet which 
were nailed on Calvary. 

9. Honors of Those who Turn Men to God. 

(207.) All honor to the prophet who went up to heaven in a chariot 
of fire ; but nobler still his departure, who, as he ascends to glory, 
leaves spiritual sons behind him to weep by the cast-off mantle of his 
flesh, and cry, " My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the 
horsemen thereof ! ' ' What honors does this world offer ? what stars, 
what jewelled honors flash on her swelling breast, to be for one moment 



HEA VEN. 79 

compared with those which they win on earth, and wear in heaven, who 
have turned souls from darkness to light — from the cursed power of 
Satan to the living God ? Each soul a gem in their crown, they that 
have turned many to righteousness shall shine with the brightness of the 
firmament, as the stars, forever and ever. 

10. The Brightest Honors of Heaven. 

(208.) Others may have filled the world with the breath of their name ; 
he has helped to fill heaven. Others may have won an earthly renown ; 
but he who, one himself, has sought to make others Christians — who, 
reaching the rock himself, draws another, a perishing child, brother, 
friend, neighbor, up — plucked from the flood himself, pulls another out 
— who has leaped into the depths that he might rise with a pearl, and 
set it lustrous in Jesus' crown — he is the man who shall wear 
heaven's brightest honors, and to whom, before all else, the Lord will 
say, " Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord." 

1 1 . Our Knowledge will be Increased in Heaven. 

(209.) Meanwhile, let it content us to be assured, that the extent of our 
knowledge shall correspond to the height of our elevation ; and that, as 
a man, from the bartizan of some lofty tower, or the summit of some 
loftier mountain, commands a wider view and broader landscape, and, 
in the course of rivers, the ranges of hills, the outlines and indentations 
of the coast, obtains a far more extensive view of objects, and a much 
clearer conception of their relative bearings, than he enjoyed in the 
plain below ; so, while some subjects, like the snowy summits of the 
Himalayas or Andes, may remain forever inaccessible, yet, once raised 
to heaven, we shall understand many mysteries, and solve many ques- 
tions connected with sin and its sorrows, of which it is best now to say, 
' ' Such knowledge is too high for me ; I cannot attain unto it. ' ' 

12. Pledges of Heaven. 

(210.) Ere autumn has tinted the woodlands, or the corn-fields are 
falling to the reaper's song, or hoary hill-tops, like gray hairs on an 
aged head, give warning of winter's approach, I have seen the swallow's 
brood pruning their feathers, and putting their long wings to the proof ; 
and, though they might return to their nests in the window-eaves, or 
alight again on the house-tops, they darted away in the direction of 
sunny lands. Thus they showed that they were birds bound for a 
foreign clime, and that the period of their migration from the scene of 
their birth was nigh at hand. Grace also has its prognostics. They are 



SO GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

infallible as those of nature. So, when the soul, filled with longings to 
be gone, is often darting away to glory, and, soaring upward, rises on 
the wings of faith, till this great world, from her sublime elevation, 
looks a little thing, God's people know that they have the earnest of the 
Spirit. These are the pledges of heaven — a sure sign that their ' ' re- 
demption draweth nigh." 

13. Who will be Associated in Heaven. 

(211.) The distant natives of the Poles and Equator shall be associ- 
ated in heaven ; they who have never met on earth shall meet there ; 
and they who never could agree on earth shall agree there ; the desire 
of our hearts shall be accomplished there ; and there those who, scowled 
at by bigots, and pitied by many as amiable visionaries, have sought a 
closer union among God's children here, shall have their fondest wishes 
gratified. From the dreadful wars that now shake the earth, and the 
hardly less painful battle-fields of churches, it is a pleasant change to 
contemplate this general assembly, where — Jesus himself presiding — the 
representatives of all nations, tribes, languages, sects, and parties, are 
met to sing the jubilee of universal peace, and eelebrate the funeral of 
all their differences. 

14. The Sinner Exasperated in Heaven. 

(212.) Therefore the heaven that purifies the saint would but exasperate 
the hatred of the sinner ; and the more God's holiness and glory were 
revealed, the more would this enmity be developed — just as the thicker 
the dews fall on decaying timber, the faster the timber rots ; and the 
more full the sunshine on a noxious plant, the more pestilent its juices 
grow. It is not in polar regions, where the day is night, and the showers 
are snow, and the rivers are moving ice, and slanting sunbeams fall 
faint and feeble, but in the climes where flowers are fairest, and fruits 
are sweetest, and fullest sunshine warms the air and lights a cloudless 
sky, that nature prepares her deadliest poisons. There the snake sounds 
its ominous rattle, and the venomous cobra lifts her hood. Even so 
sin, could it strike root in heaven, would grow morerankly, more hating 
and more hateful than on earth, and man would cast on God an eye of 
deeper and intenser enmity. 

15. A Clear Prospect of Heaven. 

(213.) He fights best, either with men or devils, who fights the battle 
with hope at his back. What so likely to make you diligent in prep- 
aration for glory, as a clear prospect of heaven, and sense of your holy 
calling ? Who that, footsore, worn, and weary, has toiled up some 



HEA YEN. 81 

mountain-height from whose breezy summit he saw his distant home, 
has not found the sight make another man of him, and — all lassitude 
gone — send him off on his journey, with bounding heart and elastic 
limbs? Therefore we say with Paul, "Give diligence, to make your 
calling and election sure." 

16. His Sinless Home a Wish of every Christian. 

(214.) In his best hours, home, his own sinless home— a home with 
his Father above that starry sky — will be the wish of every Christian 
man. He looks around him — the world is full of suffering ; he is dis- 
tressed by its sorrows, and vexed with its sins. He looks within him — 
he finds much in his own corruptions to grieve for. In the language of 
.a heart repelled, grieved, vexed, he often turns his eye upward, saying, 
" I would not live here alway." No. Not for all the gold of the 
world's mines — not for all the pearls of her seas — not for all the pleasures 
of her flashing, frothy cup — not for all the crowns of her kingdoms — 
would I live here alway. Like a bird about to migrate to those sunny 
lands where no winter sheds her snows, or strips the grove, or binds the 
dancing streams, he will often in spirit be pruning his wing for the hour 
of his flight to glory. 

17. Hard Work to Get to Heaven. 

(215.) In yonder vessel, which enters the harbor with mast sprung, 
sails in rags, bulwarks gone, bearing all the marks of having battled with 
many a storm and ridden many a crested wave, and on her deck a 
crew of weather-beaten and worn men, happy and glad to reach the 
land again — behold the plight in which the believer arrives at heaven. 
It is hard work to get there ? — No doubt of it. Paul, the man, in 
labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, 
in deaths oft — Paul, the martyr, thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, 
thrice shipwrecked, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of 
robbers, in perils by his countrymen, by the heathen, in the city, in 
the wilderness, on the sea — Paul, the patient sufferer for Christ, of a 
life of weariness, and painfullness, and watchings, hunger, thirst, fast- 
ings, cold, nakedness — Paul even stood alarmed, lest he himself should 
be a castaway. 

18. Strengthening Ourselves with Thoughts of Heaven. 

(216.) Let the world reel and shake, let banks break, let sudden 
changes whelm affluence into the lowest depths of poverty, let convulsion 
succeed convulsion, till the stateliest fabrics and firmest fortunes are 
hurled into the dust, how blessed at such a time to know that heaven is 



82 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

sure. No tempests sweep its sea of glass. Up there it is calm when it 
is stormy here ; up there it is clear when it is cloudy here ; up there 
it is day when it is darkness here ; nor are those realms of bliss any 
more affected by the events of earth than are the stars of the firma- 
ment by the earthquakes that shake our world, or the thunders that 
shake our skies. By considerations like these we should strengthen 
our minds, and give them that firmness of texture which shall preserve 
us from devouring cares, as solid, close-grained oak is preserved from 
those insects that eat out the heart of softer woods. 

19. A Type of the Heavenly Paradise. 
(217.) Damascus, which her poets dignif}' with the title of " Pearl 
of the East," presents attractive charms to travellers ; for, beside being 
the oldest, it is in some of its aspects the most beautiful of cities. 
With its white towers and minarets shooting up through groves of green 
palms into the transparent air, it lies within sight of the snow-crowned 
Hermon ; reposing at the feet of a grand mountain range, and encircled 
by a zone of gardens and of orchards of variously tinted foliage and the 
finest fruits. Its plain is watered by Abana and Pharpar. These 
rivers, reckoned by tbe Syrian leper better than all the waters of Israel, 
rush forth from their mountain gorges to be parted into a thousand 
streams that, foaming onward in their course, dance and sparkle in the 
bright sunshine, and cover the soil on their banks with a carpet of 
flowery verdure. No city in the world is more, perhaps none is so 
worthy of the encomium which the pride and patriotism of the Jewa 
pronounced on their Jerusalem, " Beautiful for situation, the joy of the 
whole earth." Travellers have used the most glowing terms and ex- 
hausted the powers of language in their attempts to describe its charms; 
but no expressions can give us so vivid an idea of them as the part 
Mahomet acted, when, a camel-driver traversing the neighboring moun- 
tains, he stood in the gorge where the city first burst on his view Rapt 
for a while in astonishment, he gazed on the wondrous scene, but by- 
and-by recovered himself ; and fearing, should he venture down into 
the city, that its charms would seduce him into forgetting the vast 
schemes of his life, he turned aside, and passed on, saying, with a self- 
denial and determination of purpose Christians would do well to imitate, 
Man can have but one paradise, and mine is fixed above. 



HELL. 

1. The Trees shall Burn that will not Bear. 
(218.) Yes ; the trees shall burn that will not bear. Be assured 
that God loses nothing in the end. He will make his own use of every 



HELL. 83 

man, extracting glory out of all— even from cumberers of the ground. 
If you are not good for fruit, you shall serve for fuel. God is not will- 
ling that any should perish ; willing, most willing, rather that the sin- 
ner should live, he follows him to the very gate of hell, crying, " Turn 
ye, turn ye, why will ye die ?" Yet be warned in time ; you cannot 
escape the alternative ; this or that you must choose — to honor God by 
your active or your passive obedience. God help you, like Mary, to 
choose the better part ! This day, I set before you " life and death." 
Will you do his will in heaven, or suffer it in hell ? 

2. The Pit an Awful Reality. 

(219.) It were no kindness to spread a covering over the pit ; that 
is the cunning hunter's business ; and the business of him who hunts 
the world for souls. It is an awful thought, that pit ; it is awful 
reality, that pit ; it is an awful abode, that pit ; and this is an awful 
declaration, " The wicked shall be cast into hell, and all the nations 
that fear not God." But over against these stern declarations, and be- 
tween the pit and you, a high red cross is standing. Mercy descends 
from heaven, lights upon its summit, and preaches hope to despair, 
pardon to guilt, salvation to the lost. Free as the winds that fan her 
cheek, free as the sunbeams that shine on her golden tresses, she in- 
vites all to come, opens her arms to embrace the world, and in a voice 
that rings like a silver trumpet, cries, " O Earth, Earth, Earth, hear 
the word of the Lord." 

3. Longer in Perdition the Greater Sinner. 

(220.) If the longer in prison the greater criminal, the longer in per- 
dition the greater sinner ! The dead fruit grows more rotten, and the 
dead body more loathsome in its change to dust ; even so they that are 
filthy shall not only be filthy, but shall be filthier still. 

4. God's Voice of Terror. 

(221.) God, indeed, tells us of hell, but it is to persuade us to go to 
heaven ; and, as a skilful painter fills the background of his picture 
with his darker colors, God puts in the smoke of torment and the black 
clouds of Sinai, to give brighter prominence to Jesus, the cross of 
Calvary, and his love to the chief of sinners. His voice of terror is like 
the scream of the mother bird when the hawk is in the sky. She 
alarms her brood that they may run and hide beneath her feathers. 

5. What the Wrath of God is a Key to. 

(222.) With his blind face turned up to heaven, you see a man ap- 
proach the edge of an awful precipice ; every step brings him nearer — 



84: OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

still nearer, the brink. Now he reaches it ; he stands on the grassy 
edge. Oh for an arm to reach him — for a voice to warn him — for a 
blow to send him staggering back upon the ground ! But he has lifted 
his foot ; it is projected beyond the brink ; another moment, a breath 
of wind, the least change of balance, and he is whirling twenty fathoms 
down. You stop your ears, close your eyes, turn away your head ; 
horror has taken hold of you. And such were David's feelings when he 
contemplated the sins and fate of the wicked : " Horror hath taken hold 
upon me, because of the wicked that forsake thy law : rivers of water 
run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law, O God." The 
wrath of God is the key to David's sorrow, to an Apostle's tears, to the 
bloody mysteries of the Cross. 

6. Play not with Fire Unquenchable. 

(223.) Some years ago, on a great public occasion, a distinguished 
statesman rose up in the presence of assembled thousands, and, in reply 
to certain calumnious and dishonorable charges, raised his hands in the 
vast assembly, exclaiming, " These hands arc clean." Now, if you or 
I, or any of our fallen race did entertain a hope that we could act over 
this scene before God in judgment, I could comprehend the calm and 
unimpassioned indifference with which men sit in church on successive 
Sabbaths, eye the cross of Calvary, and listen to the overtures of mercy. 
Are these matters with which you have nothing to do ? If, indeed, you 
have no sins to answer for — if before this world's great assize you arc 
prepared not only to plead, but to prove your innocence — if conscience 
accuses you in nothing, and excuses you in everything — then sleep on, 
in God's name sleep on, and take your rest. But when the heavens 
over men are clothed in thunders, and hell yawns beneath their feet, 
and both God's law and their own conscience condemn them, such in- 
difference is madness ! Beware ! play with no lire ; least of all, with 
fire unquenchable. Play with no edged sword ; least of all, with that 
which Justice sheathed in a Saviour's bosom. Delay by the mouth of 
no pit ; least of all, on the brink of a bottomless one, the smoke of 
whose torment goeth up forever and ever. 



HOLY SPIRIT. 

1 . Poxoer of the Holy Spirit. 

(224.) Sin never wove, in hottest hell-fires the devil never forged, a 
chain, which the Spirit of God, wielding the hammer of the word, can- 
not strike from fettered limbs. Put that to the test. Try the power of 



HOLY SPIRIT. 85 

prayer. Let continued, constant, earnest, wrestling prayer be made for 
those that are chained to their sins, and, so to speak, thrust " into the 
inner prison," and see whether, as on that night when Peter was led 
forth by the angel's hand, your prayers are not turned into most grate- 
ful praises. 

2. Mysterious Work Done by the Spirit of God at the Hoxtr of Death. 

(225.) So much imperfection, so many infirmities cleave to the best 
of us, that I sometimes think that a change must take place at the mo- 
ment of death second only to that at the moment of conversion. There 
is much sin to be cast off, like a slough, with this mortal flesh. Saw we 
the spirit at its departure, as Elisha saw his ascending master, we might 
see a mantle of infirmity and imperfection dropped from the chariot 
that bears it in triumph to the skies. I have thought that there must 
be a mysterious work done by the Spirit of God in the very hour of 
death to form the glorious crown and copestone of all his other labors ; 
and that, like the wondrous but lovely plant which blows at midnight, 
grace comes out in its perfect beauty amid the darkness of the dying 
hour. 

3. GoaVs People have the Witness of the Spirit. 

(226.) We have not, nor can we expect to have, such a testimony to 
our sonship as the Saviour received when he went up from Jordan, and 
the form as of a dove descended out of heaven on his head, still wet 
with the waters of baptism. By the descent of the dove, and the voice 
of the thunder, his Father said : " This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
am well pleased." And yet God's people enjoy that very same testi- 
mony. The descent of the Spirit is still the evidence of sonship ; its 
sign, however, is not a dove perched upon their heads, but the dove 
nestled within their hearts. 

4. The Gifts of, do not Stipersede Our Own Efforts. 

(227.) This heavenly gift neither circumscribes nor supersedes our 
own exertions. These gracious influences descend not to set us idle, any 
more than the breeze blows to send the sailor to his hammock and rock 
him over in the arms of sleep. On the contrary, long away, and weary- 
ing to be home, his eye often turned homeward across the water's 
waste, he shakes out every yard of canvas on the bending mast, and 
works the harder to gain the full advantage of propitious winds. It 
should be so with us. May it be so with us ! The more full the gifts 
and divine breathings of the Spirit, the busier let us be — busier in the 
use of prayer, of sacraments, of the Bible, and of all those ordinances 



86 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

through which the Spirit works, mid impels souls onward and homeward 
in a heavenly course. 

5. Improving His Call. 

(228.) If improved, who can tell but it may be with you as with one 
well known to us. She was a fair enough professor, yet had been living 
a careless, godless, Christless life. She awoke one morning, and, most 
strange and unaccountable ! her waking feeling was a strong desire to 
pray. She wondered. It was early dawn, and what more natural than 
that she should say, there is time enough — meanwhiie " a little more 
sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep." 
As she was sinking back again into unconsciousness, suddenly, with 
the brightness ami power of lightning, a thought flashed into her mind, 
filling her with alarm — this desire may have come from God ; this may 
be the hour of my destiny — this, the tide of salvation, which, if neg- 
lected, may never return. She rose, and flung herself on her knees. 
The chamber was changed into a Peniel, and when the morning sun 
looked in at her window, he found her wrestling with God in prayer ; 
and, like one from a sepulchre, she came forth that day at the call of 
Jesus to follow him henceforth, and in her future life to walk this world 
with God. 

6. The Spirit of God the Moving Power. 

(229.) Of what use would be the machinery which is to be moved, 
without a force adequate to move it ? Without a main-spring within the 
clock, however complete all its wheels, pinions, pivots, and axles, these 
hands would stand on the face of time, nor advance one step over the 
numbered hours. So were it with the renewed soul without the Spirit 
of God to set its powers in motion, bring them into play, and impart to 
them a true and heavenward character. For this purpose God fulfils 
the promise, " I will put my Spirit within you." 

7. S})ecial Moving of the Spirit. 

(230.) " Let it be," said the Lord to David and his men of war, 
when — lying in ambush, and expecting divine assistance — they waited 
for the signal of battle, " let it be, when thou hearest the sound of go- 
ing on the tops of the mulberry trees, that thou shalt bestir thyself." 
Such a signal, like the feet of the angelic host marching over the tops 
of the trees, heaven may vouchsafe to us in some holy desire, emotion, 
thought, which, if yielded to and improved, may lead to heaven ; but 
neglected, rejected, or repelled, may leave us to perish in hell. In 
these, which occasionally come to the most careless sinner, you hear the 
Spirit moving — in them you hear the Spirit calling. 



HUMILITY. 87 

HUMILITY. 

1 . Humility the Root and Strength of Lofty Piety. 

(231.) We have wondered at the lowliness of a man, who stood 
among his compeers like Saul among the people — to find him simple, 
gentle, generous, docile, humble as a little child — till we found that it 
was with great men as with great trees. What giant tree has not giant 
roots ? When the tempest has blown over some such monarch of the 
forest, and he lies in death stretched out at his full length upon the 
ground, on seeing the mighty roots that fed him — the strong cables that 
moored him to the soil — we cease to wonder at his noble stem, and the 
broad, leafy, lofty head he raised to heaven, defiant of storms. Even 
so, when death has struck down some distinguished saint — whose 
removal, like that of a great tree, leaves a vast gap below, and whom, 
brought down now, as it were, to our own level, we can measure better 
when he has fallen than when he stood — and when the funeral is over, 
and his repositories are opened, and the secrets of his heart are unlocked 
and brought to light, ah ! now, in the profound humility they reveal — 
in the spectacle of that honored gray head, laid so low in the dust be- 
fore God — we see the great roots and strength of his lofty piety. 

2. The Humbler in our Own, the Higher in God's Byes. 

(232.) I wish you to think little, very little of yourselves ; but why ? 
because the less you think of yourselves, the more will you esteem 
Christ ; and the humbler you are in your own eyes, the higher you will 
stand in God's. The guest, who, coming modestly in, takes the lowest 
place at the table, is called up to the seat of honor ; and I have always 
thought, that none are so sure to lie in Jesus' bosom as those I have 
seen lying lowest at Jesus' feet. Was it not over one, who content to 
hespoken of as " a dog," held herself well served with crumbs, and 
asked nothing but the sweepings of the table, that Jesus pronounced 
this superlative eulogium — " I have not found such faith ; no, not in 
Israel." 

3. The Holiest Men have always been Humble. 

(233.) Hence, brought by grace to see its vileness, and to feel its 
exceeding evil, the holiest men have always been the humblest, the 
strongest have felt the weakest, the best have thought the worst of 
themselves — David, the man after God's own heart, saying, I was as a 
beast before thee ; Job, the most remarkable character of his own or 
any age for piety and uprightness, saying, as he shrank from his own 



88 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

image, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes ; and Paul, though 
the greatest of all the apostles, much too great as well as honest to fish 
for compliments and depreciate himself that others might praise him, 
speaking of himself not as the least, but as less than the least, of all 
saints. 

4. Humility of the Sincere Christian. 

(234.) For who knows himself, knowing much more ill of himself 
than he can of any one else, will indulge in no proud and self-compla- 
cent and odious comparisons — his prayer will be that of David, Enter 
not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living 
be justified — his language that of Job, I abhor myself — his confession, 
Ezra's, O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to tbee, 
my God — and glad to enter heaven at the back of Manasseh, or the 
woman that was a sinner, or the thief of the cross, he will leave the 
Pharisee to place himself beside the publican, and catch from his lips 
the heartfelt prayer, God be merciful to me a sinner ! 



5. The Saint Grows in, as He Groics in Holiness. 

(235.) Here — no ornament to park or garden — stands a dwarfed, 
stunted, bark-bound tree. How am I to develop that dwarfish stem 
into tall and graceful beauty — to clothe with blossoms these naked 
branches, and hang them, till they bend, with clustered fruit ? Change 
such as that is not to be effected by surface dressing, or any care 
bestowed on the upper soil. The remedy must go to the root. You 
cannot make that tree grow upward till you break up the crust— pulver- 
ize the hard subsoil, and give the roots room and way to strike deeper 
down ; for, the deeper the root, and the wider spread the fine filaments 
of its rootlets, the higher the tree lifts an umbrageous head to heaven, 
and spreads out its hundred arms, to catch, in dews, rain-drops, and 
sunbeams, the blessings of the sky. 

(236.) The believer — in respect of character, " a tree of righteous- 
ness of the Lord's planting," in respect of strength, " a cedar of Leba- 
non," in respect of fruitfulness, an olive, in respect of position, "a 
palm tree planted in the courts of God's house," in respect of full sup- 
plies of grace, a tree by the rivers of water " which yieldeth its fruit in 
its season, and whose leaf doth not wither" — offers this analogy between 
grace and nature. As the tree grows best skyward that grows most 
downward, the lower the saint grows in humility, the higher he grows 
in holiness. The soaring corresponds to the sinking. 



IGNORANCE. 89 



HYPOCRISY. 



1. The Insinuation of General Hypocrisy. 
(237.) As to the insinuation of general hypocrisy, the wretched 
charge got up against all religion, when some specious professor stands 
unmasked before the world, how absurd it is ! Is there no grain in our 
barn-yards, because there is so much chaff ? Are all patriots — Wallace 
and the Bruce, Tell, Russel, and Washington — deceivers and liars, 
because some men have villainously betrayed their country ? Is there 
no honor in the British army, because some soldiers, the sweepings 
probably of our city streets, have left the lines, and leaped the trenches, 
and deserted to the enemy ? Is there no integrity among British mer- 
chants, because now and then we hear of a fraudulent bankruptcy ? 
Because some religious professors prove hypocrites, is therefore all 
ardent piety hollow hypocrisy ? To reason so, argues either a disor- 
dered intellect or a very depraved heart — is a conclusion, indeed, as 
contrary to logic as to love. 



IDLENESS. 

1. The Mother of Mischief 
(238.) The bird that ceases to use its wings does not hang in mid-air,, 
but drops like a stone to the ground ; and by a law almost as certain, 
he sinks into evil habits whose time and faculties are not engaged on 
innocent and good employments. So much is this the case, that though 
periods of relaxation are desirable, there is danger in unduly prolonging 
them. " There are few indeed," says Addison in the Spectator, " who 
know how to be idle and innocent : every diversion they take is at the 
expense of some one virtue or another, and their very first step out of 
business is into vice or folly." The purest water left to stagnate grows 
putrid ; and the finest soil thrown into fallow soon throws up a crop of 
weeds. Had David, as in other days, followed his army to the battle- 
field, he had perilled his life, but saved his character ; escaping a temp- 
tation that owed perhaps more than half its power to the luxurious ease 
and idleness of a palace. Idleness is the mother of mischief ; and who 
would keep their hands from doing wrong must employ them in doing 
good. 

IGNORANCE. 

1. Man's Ignorance. 
(239.) Unbeliever as he was, the great Laplace echoed these senti- 
ments of Job, in this, one of his last and not least memorable utterances — 



90 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

" It is the little that we know ; it is the great that remains unknown." 
And in the confession of his ignorance, has not a Christian, and still 
greater philosopher, left us perhaps the finest illustration of his wisdom ? 
Newton's most brilliant discoveries reflect no brighter lustre on Newton's 
name than his well-known comparison of himself to a little child — a 
child who had gathered some few pebbles on the shores of a vast and 
unexplored ocean. 



IMMORTALITY. 

1. The Heathen Believe the Soul Survives the Death of the Body. 

(240.) Why do these weeping Greeks approach the dead man, as he 
lies on his bier for burial, and open his mouth to put in an obolus ? 
The coin is passage-money for the surly ferryman who rows the ghosts 
over Styx's stream. And why, in that forest grave, around which 
plumed and painted warriors stand unmoved and immovable as statues, 
do they bury, with the body of the Indian chief, his canoe and bow and 
arrow ? He goes to follow the chase, and hunt the deer in the spectre 
land where the Great Spirit lives, and the spirits of his fathers have gone 
before him. How easy it is to trace in these customs and beliefs, a sort 
of rude copy of the words, Life and immortality, I shall not die, but 
live. 



INDUSTRY. 

1. The Benefits of Unwearied Industry. 

(241.) There is a passage in Palgrave's " Central Arabia,'' on reading 
which I thought, "So Pharaoh and Joseph may have been seen.'' 
Palgrave tells how the street was filled with a great throng of people. 
There is a commotion in the crowd. Opening, it shows an armed band 
advancing. They form a circle that has its centre occupied by those 
whose dress, with the respectful distance observed by their followers, an- 
nounce their superior rank. It is the monarch. His step is measured, 
his demeanor grave and somewhat haughty. His robe is a Cashmere 
shawl. He wears a rich turban on his head, and at his girdle a gold- 
mounted sword. He moved, a cloud of perfumes ; and as he walked 
along his eye never rested, but flung eagle-glances, rapid and brilliant, 
on the surrounding crowd. By his side walked one also wearing a 
sword, but mounted with silver, not with gold ; and also richly dressed, 
though in somewhat less costly materials. This man's face was more 
remarkable than his attire. It wore a courtly expression, and beamed 
with unusual intelligence. Of these two, the first was Telal, the king ; 



INSTRUMENTS. 91 

the second Zaniel, his treasurer, his prime minister, his sole minister. 
In this man I saw Joseph at the right-hand of Pharaoh. Their offices 
were alike. The} 7 resembled each other in this also, that both had risen 
to the highest, from the humblest, position in life. Joseph had been a 
slave ; a prisoner ; falsely accused and cruelly wronged. Zaniel had 
been an orphan, a ragged boy. His early years were passed in beggary ; 
nor was it by a mere wave of fortune that he was flung into his high 
position. He had climbed to it. He owed it to his admirable disposi- 
tion, remarkable talents, unwearied industry, skill in business, and 
■extraordinary force of character. In this also the resemblance between 
the two was remarkable. For it was, under God, to his high moral 
and rare mental qualities, and not in any degree to chance or fortune, that 
the young Hebrew slave reached power and dignity, becoming governor 
■of the kingdom which he had entered as a slave. 



INFIDELITY. 

1 . Defeats of Infidelity. 

(242.) The history of infidelity, were it written, would present a suc- 
cession of ignominious defeats ; defeats due not to any want of ability 
in those who have assailed the truth, but to this, that its defenders have 
■driven them out of all their positions. The history, the morality, the 
theology, the consistency, the authenticity, and genuineness of the 
Bible, the truth of its prophecies, and the very possibility of its miracles, 
have been all attacked — each in its turn, and with the same result. We 
liave seen the soldier return from the fields of war with scars as well as 
medals on his breast ; but our religion has come out of a thousand fights 
ainscarred, from a thousand fires unscathed. She bears no more evi- 
dence of the assaults she has sustained than the air of the swords that 
have cloven it, or the sea of the keels which have ploughed its foaming 
waves ; than some bold rocky headland of the billows that, dashing 
-against it in proud but impotent fury, have shivered themselves on its 
sides. 



INSTRUMENTS. 

1. Instruments Chosen by God. 

(243.) He had a great work to do on the earth, and in Abraham he 
selected a great man to do it : an instrument eminently adapted to 



92 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

accomplish his end. This is, so to speak, God's ordinary rule. Any- 
thing else is exceptional. Having great ends to accomplish, did he not 
in old time select great men to do them in the cases of Moses, of Joshua, 
of David, of Daniel, of Paul ; and in later times in the case of Luther 
and Bishop Latimer, of Calvin and John Knox ? Apart altogether from, 
their piety, these all were men of pre-eminent natural abilities. They 
were the foremost of their time. No doubt God can work \»y many or 
by few ; smite a giant with a pebble from a stripling's sling, or scatter 
a host by the flashes of a lamp and the blare of an empty trumpet ; and 
for the very purpose of reminding men that though Paul plant and 
Apollos water, the increase is with Him, in saving souls as well as irt 
ruling the destinies of the world, he occasionally selects the weakest 
instruments to accomplish the greatest ends. But such is not God's 
ordinary practice. They altogether misread, or misunderstand, his word 
who think otherwise. 

2. Man as the Instrument of Saving His Felloio-Men. 

(244.) I hold it a singular kindness to man that he is selected to be- 
the instrument of saving his fellow-men. The God of salvation, the 
author and finisher of our faith, might have arranged it otherwise. 
" Who shall limit the Holy One of Israel ?" The field is the world ; 
and as the husbandman ploughs his fields and sows his seed in spring by 
the very hands that bind the sheaves of autumn, God might have sent 
those angels to sow the Gospel, who shall descend at judgment to reap 
the harvest. But although these blessed and benevolent spirits take a 
lively interest in the work, and are sent forth to minister to them that, 
are heirs of salvation — although watching from on high the progress of 
the Redeemer's cause, they rejoice in each new jewel that is added to- 
his crown, and in every new province that is won for his kingdom ; and 
although there be more joy even in heaven than on earth when man is- 
saved — a higher joy among these angels ' ' over one sinner that rcpent- 
eth thau over ninety and nine just persons" — yet theirs is little more 
than the pleasure of spectators. Theirs is the joy of those who, occupy- 
ing the shore, or crowded on its heights, with eager eyes and beating 
heart follow the bold swimmer's movements, and watching his head as 
it rises and sinks among the waves, see him near the downing child, 
and pluck his half-drowned prey from the billow ; and, still trembling 
lest strength should fail him, look on with anxious hearts, till, buffeting 
his way back, he reaches the strand, and amid their shouts and sympa- 
thies restores her boy to the arms of a fainting mother. To man, how- 
ever, in salvation, it is given to share, not a spectator's but a Saviour's 
joy ; and with his lips at least to taste the cup for which Jesus endured 
the cross and despised the shame. 



JESUS. 93 

INVISIBLE THINGS. 

1. Visible and Invisible Things. 

(245.) What is out of sight is very apt to be out of mind. Let this 
teach you to take all the more heed to live by faith in the invisible. 
Consider how, with all their glare and show, things seen are paltry, 
passing, the least of things ; and that grandeur and endurance belong to 
the unseen. The soul is unseen ; precious jewel of immortality, it lies 
concealed within its fragile fleshly casket. Hell and heaven are unseen ; 
the first sinks beneath our sight, the second rises high above it. The 
eternal world is unseen ; a veil impenetrable hangs before its mysteries, 
liiding them from the keenest eye. Death is unseen ; he strikes his 
blow in the dark. The devil is unseen — stealing on us often unsus- 
pected, and always invisible. And as is our deadliest foe, so is our best 
and trustiest, our heavenly Friend. Jesus is an invisible Saviour ; 
Jehovah is an invisible God. 



JESUS. 



1. The Advent of Christ. 

(246.) On earth, the expectation of that event was coeval almost with 
the promise of it — Eve cherishing the hope that not any of her daugh- 
ters, but she herself, should be the mother of the Messiah. Wrung 
with remorse for her incalculable crime, and eager to see its misery and 
mischief undone, she grasped at the fulfilment of the promise, but to be 
disappointed ; to catch only a mocking shadow. It is a common say- 
ing, that the wish is father to the thought ; what we eagerly desire, we 
easily believe. So the shipwrecked sailor, a miserable castaway tossed 
on the open sea, takes a sunlit cloud for a sail, and rouses his fellows 
from their stupor with joyful cry of Land ! land — mistaking a fog-bank 
for the blessed shore : and so also our poor mother Eve, hailing in her 
first-born the promised seed, clasped Cain to her beating bosom. Alas ! 
in the words of Scripture, she fled from a lion, and a bear met her ; she 
leant on a wall, and a serpent bit it. "I have gotten," she exclaimed, 
' ' the man"— the promised man — " from the Lord. ' ' Never was mother 
so bitterly disappointed ; never more false, though fair, the bright happy 
vision that have floated round many an infant's cradle ! It was a serpent, 
not a Saviour, Eve pressed to her joyful bosom. For, strange to say, as 
there, where Pilate gives them their choice between Jesus and Barabbas, 
the infuriate multitude prefer a murderer to the Lord of Glory, here, in 
this quiet bower where Eve is singing her boy asleep, he who cruelly 



94 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

shed man's blood to kill is mistaken for Him who generously shed his 
own to save. 

(247.) From that day onward many besides Eve were disappointed — 
if not so bitterly. The vision tarried ; tarried long ; for four thousand 
weary years eyes grew dim looking, and hearts grew faint hoping, for 
it. But it came at last. Heaven is all moved. Its gates fly open, 
and, accompanied by a shining train, the Son of God descends upon 
the world ; and in that stable over whose humble roof angels are singing, 
and within whose bare unfurnished walls an infant is wailing, the pro- 
phecy is fulfilled, " Unto us a child is born, and unto us a Son is 
given. " 

2. Jesus should be All our Desire. 

(248.) When Alexander offered to do Diogenes any favor he might 
ask, the philosopher, contemplating in the sun a far nobler object than 
the conqueror of the world, and setting a higher value on his beams than 
on the brightest rays of royalty, only begged the monarch to step aside, 
nor stand between him and the sun. However rude such an answer on 
the part of the cynic, it were a right noble speech from you to any and 
every object that would steal your heart from Christ. Let him, who is 
all your salvation, be all your desire. Is he not " the brightness of the 
Father's glory, and the express image of His person" ? Fairer than the 
children of men, more lovely than the loveliest, he is "the chiefest 
among ten thousand " — he is " altogether lovely." 

3. We Should Go to Jesus Just as We Are. 

(249.) We are told that " he shaved himself, and changed his rai- 
ment, and came in unto Pharaoh." I have to tell the sinner that, 
although he lies in a deeper and darker dungeon, although he is covered 
with fouler and filthier rags, and although the presence of Jesus is infi- 
nitely more august, and venerable, and exalted, than that of any mortal 
king, he stands in no need of preparatory holiness, of even one short 
hour's delay. You have neither to change a rag, nor remove a stain. 
He is ready to receive you as you are. Come then as you are. 

4. Separate from Sinners. 

(250.) It was the purest love which drew our Lord to sinners. He 
was among them, but holy, harmless, and undefiled — separate, as oil 
among the water it swims in, or as the sunbeam which, lighting up the 
dun and dusty air, passes through it without contracting the slightest 
stain. 



JESUS. 95 

.5. Sufferings of the Saviour. 

(251.) The ocean has been fathomed to depths that would receive, 
and top, and bury below her waves the snowy crests of the Andes. But 
there are abysses there, depths in the sea, profounder still ; out of 
soundings : where man never struck bottom ; which wheel never spun, 
nor ship carried, line long enough to fathom. Like these, but more 
immeasurable, altogether inconceivable indeed, were the sufferings 
which, afflicting the Saviour's soul, dyed the flowers of Gethsemane with 
his blood, and wrung from his pale lips the lamentable cry, " My God, 
my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" 

6. Our Treasure. 

(252.) A treasure ! So men speak of the child who, like a beautiful 
flower with a worm at its root, may droop and die ; of fame won on a 
stage, where the spectators who applaud to-night may hiss to-morrow ; 
of riches that, like scared wild fowl on the reedy margin of a lake, take 
to themselves wings and fly away. But how much worthier of the name 
the Friend who never leaves us ; health that sickens not, and life that 
dies not ; love that never cools, and glory that never fades. 

7. Our Lord's Lofty and Hohj Life. 

(253.) It is one of the finest testimonies borne to our Lord's lofty 
and holy life, that the thirty years which he spent in a small town — 
where leisure always abounds, and scandal is often rife, and every man's 
character and habits are discussed in private circles and dissected by many 
cutting tongues — did not furnish them with the shred of an excuse for 
whispering an ill word against him. His life resembled a polished 
mirror, which the foulest breath cannot stain, nor dim beyond a passing 
moment. What a noble testimony to Jesus Christ ! Holy, harmless, 
undefiled, separate from sinners, envy found no way to vent its malice 
and spit its venom at him, but by a taunt she drew from his humble 
origin and poo? relatives. 

8. On Looking to Jesus as a Saviour. 

(254.) I do not say that we should look less to Christ as a Saviour, 
but we should certainly look more to him as a sovereign ; nor fix our 
attention on his cross, so much to the exclusion of his crown. We are 
not to yield him less faith, but more obedience. We should not less 
often kiss his wounds, but more frequently his feet. We can never too 
highly esteem his love, but we may, and often do, think too lightly of 
his law. His Spirit helping us, let his claims on our obedience be as 
cheerfully conceded as his claim on our faith ; so that to our love of his 



96 OEMS OF ILL USTRA TION. 

glorious person, and his saving work, we may be able to add with David, 
" how love I thy law !" 

9. The Sinner's Surety. 

(255.) Going to prison for us, to bondage for us, to death for us, 
Jesus, by rendering in his life a perfect obedience to the law, and in his 
sufferings a perfect satisfaction to the justice of his Father, has paid all. 
The benefits of his suretyship are ours if we believe. Trembling at the 
bar, overwhelmed by proofs of guilt, condemned, crushed — guilty one, 
lift your head, look up, behold 

" Where high the heavenly temple stands, 
The house of God not made with hands. 
A great High Priest our nature wears ; 
The Guardian of mankind appears ; 
He who for men their surety stood, 
And poured on earth his precious blood, 
Pursues in heaven his mighty plan, 
The Saviour and the Friend of man." 

10. Holds the Sceptre of Universal Empire. 

(256.) In the hands that were once nailed to the cross, it places the 
sceptre of universal empire ; and on those blessed arms that, once thrown 
around a mother's neck, now tenderly enfold every child of God, it 
hangs the weight of worlds. Great is the mystery of godliness ! Yet 
so it is, plainly written in the words, By him all things consist. By 
him the angels keep their holiness, and the stars their orbits ; the tides 
roll along the deep, and the seasons through the year ; kings reign, and 
princes decree justice ; the church of God is held together, riding out at 
anchor the rudest storms ; and by him, until the last of his elect are 
plucked from the wreck, and his purposes of mercy are all accomplished, 
this guilty world is kept from sinking under a growing load of sins. 

11. The Boundless Grace of Christ. 

(257.) To the half of his kingdom, the Persian promised whatever his 
•queen might ask ; and generous, right-royal as was his offer, it helps us 
by its very meanness, as a molehill at the foot of a mountain, as a 
taper's feeble, yellow flame held up against the blazing sun, to form 
some estimate of the boundless grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Half 
his kingdom ! He offers nothing by halves. His promise is illimitable. 
All mine is thine. Confining his generosity neither to kingdoms, nor 
continents, nor worlds, nor heaven itself, he lays the whole universe at a 
poor sinner's feet. Away then with fears and cares ! There is nothing 
we need that we shall not get, nothing we can ask that we shall not 



JESUS. 97 

receive. It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. 
Transferring divine wealth, if I may so speak, to our account in the 
bank of heaven, and giving us an unlimited credit there, Jesus says, All 
things, whatsoever ye ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive. 

12. A Preacher of Salvation. 

(258.) Sovereigns do sometimes grant pardons ; but, so far as I know, 
they never bring them. Little affected by the miseries of the wretch 
•whose sighs and groans confined within stone walls never penetrate the 
rpalace to disturb the sleep or dash the pleasure of the court, kings con- 
tent themselves with sending pardons through servants and cold officials ; 
and such a thing as one leaving his palace, bending his steps to the 
prison, flying on wings of love, with his own lips to announce the tid- 
ings, and hear with his own ears, sound sweeter than finest music, the 
cry of joy from one plucked from the jaws of death, is untold in his- 
tory. But Christ so loved us that he came himself with the good news. 
He who at a great price procured liberty to the captive also proclaimed 
It ; and he who made this earth stood on it a preacher of salvation. 

13. Revealed Truth Proclaims Jesus Christ Lord of All. 

(259.) As, with the genius that aspires to immortality, and anticipates 
the admiration of future ages, the painter leaves his name on a corner of 
the canvas, so Inspiration, dipping her pen in indelible truth, has in- 
scribed the name of Jesus upon all we see — on sun and stars, flower and 
tree, rock and mountain, the unstable waters and the firm land ; and 
also on what we do not see, nor shall till death has removed the veil, 
angels and spirits, the city and heavens of the eternal world. This is no 
matter of fancy. It is a fact. It is a blessed fact. No voice ever 
sounded more distinctly to my ear, than that of revealed truth, proclaim- 
ing Jesus, Lord of all. 

14. Our Ransom. 

(260.) To save us from sin, and from that hell where they seek for 
death but cannot find it, and only find after unnumbered ages that their 
torments are beginning, Jesus interposed, saying, I will save them — sus- 
pend the sentence — I come to do thy will, O my God, deliver from 
going down to the pit, I have found a ransom — have patience with 
them, and I will pay thee all ! He paid it. Making atonement for sin, 
41 he was wounded for our transgressions ; he was bruised for our in- 
iquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with his 
stripes we are healed." The debt was paid on Calvary to the uttermost 
farthing ; and now God only awakens our convictions and alarms our 



98 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

consciences, reckoning with us, that he may bring sinners to acknowl- 
edge their guilt, and so prepare them to receive his mercy. 

15. Emblems of Jesus. 

(261.) To deck him out, and set him forth, Nature calls her finest 
flowers, brings her choicest ornaments, and lays these treasures at his 
feet. The skies contribute their stars. The sea gives up its pearls. 
From fields, and mines, and mountains, Earth brings the tribute of her 
gold, and gems, and myrrh, and frankincense ; the lily of the valley, 
the clustered vine, and the fragrant rose of Sharon. 

1 6. Eternal Obligation of the Christian to Christ. 

(262.) Surely, if there be such things as true, tender, sacred, eternal 
obligations, they bind those who, to speak the plain truth, but for Christ 
had been suffering hell's intolerable torment, had never even hoped to 
set foot in heaven. What owest thou thy Lord ? You cannot tell that. 
Therefore be your money millions or mites, be your talents ten or two, 
be your hearts young and green, or seared and withered, lay them at a 
Saviour's feet. Let his glory be your glorious aim ! 

17. Sacrifices for the Sake of the Doctrine of Christ's Headship. 

(263.) For the sake of this doctrine, for Christ's crown, for his sole 
right to rule his own house, and to regulate, without Caesar's interfer- 
ence, the affairs of his church, her largest, costliest, and most painful 
sacrifices have been made. And as if there was an instinct of grace 
corresponding to that remarkable instinct of nature which teaches even 
an infant, in the act of falling, to throw out its hands and arms, and 
save the head at the expense of its members, with a fidelity that 
has done her honor, the church has sacrificed her members, and 
lavishly shed her blood in support of Christ's headship. For thi& 
cause, counting all things but loss, many have suffered the spoiling of 
their goods ; many have gone into banishment and exile ; many have 
ascended the scaffold to lay down their heads on the block, or, embrac- 
ing the stake with a lover's ardor, have gone to heaven in a chariot of 
fire, to wear the crown of martyrdom, and learn how well Christ keeps 
the promise, Them that honor me I will honor. 

18. Attractive Relationships of Christ. 

(264.) And how difficult would it be to name a noble figure, a sweet 
simile, a tender or attractive relationship, in which Jesus is not set forth 
to woo a reluctant sinner and cheer a desponding saint ! Am I wound- 
ed ? He is balm. Am I sick ? He is medicine. Am I naked ? He 



JE8U8. 99 

is clothing. Am T poor ? He is wealth. Am I hungry ? He is bread. 
Am I thirsty ? He is water. Am I in debt ? He is surety. Am I in 
darkness ? He is a sun. Have I a house to build ? He is a rock. 
Must I face that black and gathering storm ? He is an anchor sure and 
steadfast. Am I to be tried ? He is an advocate. Is sentence passed> 
and am I condemned ? He is pardon. 

19. Creator and Lord of All. 

(265.) If nothing could be more sublime than that scene on the Lake 
of Galilee, when, tranquil in aspect, Jesus stood on the bow of the reel- 
ing boat, and while the storm played around, and the spray flew in 
white sheets over his naked head, calmly eyed the war of elements, and 
raising his hand, said, " Peace, be still !" could anything be more con- 
clusive than the evidence which these waves and winds afforded, that the 
Master himself was come home ? No clearer shone the stars that night, 
mirrored in the placid waters. There, the winds lulled and the wild 
waves at rest, deep silence spake. By that sudden hush, nature pro- 
claimed him God, Lord, Creator of all. Declared to be so by inspired 
tongues, and by such strange witnesses as winds and waves, devils, dis- 
ease, death, and the grave — heaven concurs in their testimony ; by the 
voices of its saints and angels, of its worship, hymns, harps, and hallelu- 
jahs, proclaiming him Creator and Lord of all. 

20. The One Way. 

(266.) " I," not my ordinances, not baptism, nor the supper, nor 
preaching, nor prayer, not these, but " I," says Jesus, " am the way." 
Not a way, but the way. There is but one way. 

21. Wears a Costly Croivn. 

(26V.) Inside those iron gratings that protect the ancient regalia of 
our kingdom, vulgar curiosity sees nothing but a display of jewels. Its 
stupid eyes are dazzled by the gems that stud the crown, and sword, and 
sceptre. The unreflecting multitude fix their thoughts and waste their 
admiration on these. They go away to talk of their beauty, perhaps to 
covet their possession ; nor do they estimate the value of the crown but 
by the price which its pearls, and rubies, and diamonds, might fetch in 
the market. 

(268.) The eye of a patriot, gazing thoughtfully in on these relics of 
former days, is all but blind to what attracts the gaping crowd. His 
admiration is reserved for other and nobler objects. He looks with deep 
and meditative interest on that rim of gold, not for its intrinsic value, 



100 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

but because it once encircled the brow of Scotland's greatest king, the 
hero of her independence, Robert the Bruce. 

(269. ) It is the interests that are at stake, the fight for liberty, the 
good blood shed, the hard struggles endured for its possession ; it is 
these, not the jewels, which in a patriot's eye make that a costly crown 
— a relic of the olden time, worthy of a nation's pride and jealous pre- 
servation. 

(270.) Regarded in some such light, estimated by the sufferings 
endured for it, how great the value of that crown which Jesus wears ! 
What a kingdom that which cost God his Son, and cost that Son his 
life! 

22. Hoiv He Became a King. 

(271.) There are crowns worn by living monarchs, of which it would 
be difficult to estimate the value. The price paid for their jewels is the 
least part of it. They cost thousands of lives, and rivers of human 
blood ; yet in his esteem, and surely in ours also, Christ's crown out- 
weighs them all. He gave his life for it ; and alone, of all monarchs, 
he was crowned at his coronation by the hands of Death. Others cease 
to be kings when they die. By dying he became a king. He laid his 
head in the dust that he might become " head over all ;" he entered his 
kingdom through the gates of the grave, and ascended the throne of the 
universe by the steps of a cross. 

23. Better to be with Jesus. 

(272.) The holier the child of God becomes, the more he pants after 
the perfect image and blissful presence of Jesus ; and dark although the 
passage, and deep although the river may be, the more holy he is, the 
more ready will he be to say, " It is better to depart, and be with 
Jesus." 

24. A Tender Shepherd. 

(273.) Among the hills of our native land I have met a shepherd far 
from the folds, driving home a lost sheep — one which had " gone 
astray" — a creature panting for breath, amazed, alarmed, footsore ; and 
when the rocks around rang loud to the baying of the dogs, I have seen 
them, whenever it offered to turn from the path, with open mouth dash- 
ing fiercely at its sides, and thus hounding it home. How differently 
Jesus brings home his lost ones ! The lost sheep sought and found, he 
lifts it, tenderly lays it on his shoulder, and, retracing his steps, returns 
with joy, and invites his neighbors to rejoice along with him. 



JESUS. 101 

25. The Author and Finisher of Our Faith. 

(274.) The first steps toward reconciliation between man and God are 
always taken by him. He designed redemption in the councils of eter- 
nity, so that, in a sense, before man lived he was loved, was redeemed 
before he sinned, and raised up before he fell. Without any application 
on our part, of his own free spontaneous will, God sent his Son to 
redeem, and sends his Spirit to renew. The spark of grace which we 
have to nurse, he kindled in our bosoms ; it was his hand on the helm 
that turned us round ; and whether we were at first, as some are, driven 
to Christ by terrors, or, as others are, sweetly drawn to him by the 
attractions of his love, any way it was the Lord's doing —Jesus, all praise 
be to his grace, being at once the Alpha and Omega of salvation, the 
author as well as finisher of our faith. 

26. Proofs which Our Lord Gave of His Divinity. 

(2*75.) When Ulysses returned with fond anticipations to his home in 
Ithaca, his family did not recognize him. Even the wife of his bosom 
denied her husband — so changed was he by an absence of twenty years, 
and the hardships of a long- protracted war. It was thus true of the 
vexed and astonished Greek as of a nobler King, that he came unto his 
own, and his own received him not. In this painful position of affairs 
he called for a bow which he had left at home, when, embarking for the 
siege of Troy, he bade farewell to the orange-groves and vine-clad hills 
of Ithaca. With characteristic sagacity, he saw how a bow, so stout 
and tough that none but himself could draw it, might be made to bear 
witness on his behalf. He seized it. To their surprise and joy, like a 
green wand lopped from a willow tree, it yields to his arms ; it bends 
till the bow-string touches his ear. His wife, now sure that he is her 
long lost and long lamented husband, throws herself into his fond em- 
braces, and his household confess him the true Ulysses. 

(276.) If I may compare small things with great, our Lord gave such 
proofs of his divinity when he too stood a stranger in his own house, 
despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with 
grief. He bent the stubborn laws of nature to his will. He proved 
himself Creator by his mastery over creation. 



27. The Love of Jesus for the Sinner. 

(277.) He would rather hear one poor sinner pray, than all these 
angels sing ; see one true penitent lying at his feet, than all these brill- 
iant crowns. In glory, where every eye is turned upon himself, his 



102 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

eyes are bent down on earth. I fancy that amid the pomp of state, 
and splendid enjoyments of the palace, it is little that the sovereign 
thinks of the poor felon who pines in lonely prison, crushed and terror- 
stricken, with haggard face and heavy heart, waiting the death to which 
the law has doomed him ; seldom, perhaps, in fancy, does that pallid 
wretch intrude himself where all wear smiles, or send a hollow groan 
from his cell to move one thought of pity, or disturb the sparkling flow 
of royal pleasures. But Jesus does not forget the wretchedness of the 
lost amid the happiness of the saved. Their miseries are before him ; 
and amid the high hallelujahs of the upper sanctuary, he hearkens to the 
groans of the prisoner and the cry of the perishing. And, like a mother, 
whose loving heart is not so much with the children housed at home, as 
with the fallen, beguiled, and lost one, who is the most in her thoughts, 
and oftencst mentioned in her prayers, Jesus is thinking now of every 
poor careless sinner with his lost soul, and the sentence of death hang- 
ing over his guilty head. He pities you from his heart. He would save 
you, would you consent to be saved. And you, who were never honored 
with an invitation to a palace on earth, you who are never likely to be 
so honored, you, by whom this world's pettiest monarch would 
haughtily sweep, nor deem you worthy of the smallest notice, Jesus, 
bending from his throne, invites to share his glory, and become with 
him kings and priests unto God. 



28. Seeing Jesus as He is. 

(278.) The dimness of sin impairs our vision, but were we to see 
Jesus, as we shall see him in heaven, I think it would happen to us as 
once it happened to a celebrated philosopher. Pursuing his discoveries 
on the subject of light — with a zeal not too often consecrated to science, 
but too seldom consecrated to religion — he ventured on a bold experi- 
ment. Without protection of smoked or colored glass, he fixed his gaze 
steadily, for some time, on the sun — exposing his naked eyes to the 
burning beams of its fiery disc. Satisfied, he turned his head away ; 
but, strange to see ! — such was the impression made on the organ of 
sight — wherever he turned, the sun was there ; if he looked down, it 
was beneath his feet ; it shone in the top of the sky in the murkiest 
midnight ; it blazed on the page of every book he read ; he saw it when 
he shut his eyes, he saw it w r hen he opened them. It was the last ob- 
ject which he saw when he passed off into sleep ; it was the first to meet 
his waking eyes. Happy were it for us if we got some such sight of 
Christ, and this glory of that Sun of Righteousness were so impressed 
upon the eye of faith that we could never forget him, and, ever seeing 
him, ever loved him. 



JESUS. 103 

29. An Abiding Friend. 

(279.) Like summer birds whch come and go with the sun, like our 
shadow which deserts us when his face is clouded, like fair flowers, that 
close their leaves as soon as rain begins to fall or cold winds to blow, 
earthly friends may desert us when we most need their sympathy and 
support — at the time, and in the circumstances, expressed in the well- 
known adage, "A friend in need is a friend indeed.'''' But such a friend 
is Jesus Christ. Sweetest when trials are bitterest, kindest when others 
are cruellest, nearest when danger is greatest, his character is delineated 
in the words, " A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for 
adversity ;" and his image, though faintly, is beautifully shadowed forth 
in the mother who presses the tender infant closest to her bosom when 
storms beat and winds blow the coldest. 



30. Jesus the Only Mediator. 

(280.) There was one ark in the flood — but one ; and all perished 
save those who sailed in it. There was one altar in the temple — but one ; 
and no sacrifices were accepted but those offered there — " the altar," as 
the Bible says, that " sanctified the gift." There was one way through 
the depths of the Red Sea — but one ; and only where the water, held 
back by the hand of God, stood up in crystal walls, was a passage 
opened for those that were ready to perish. And even so, there is but 
" one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 



•31 . Jesus' Name a Word of Resistless Might when Uttered by the Apostles. 

(281.) In the days of miracles, again, the name of Jesus carried with 
it the idea of his authority, and of the efficacy of his power. Uttered 
by the lips of faith, that name was a word of resistless might. It healed 
disease, shed light on darkness, and breathed life into cold death ; it 
mastered devils, controlled the powers of hell, and commanded into im- 
mediate obedience the rudest elements of nature. Like Pharaoh's signet 
on Joseph's hand, he who used that name in faith, was for the time 
gifted with his Master's power ; whatever he loosed on earth was loosed 
in heaven ; and whatever he bound on earth, was bound in heaven. 
Standing over a cripple — one impotent from his mother's womb — Peter 
looked on his deformity, and said, ' ' in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, 
rise up and walk." And, lo ! he who had never stood erect till now, 
bounded from the earth, and, in the joyful play of new-born faculties, 
walking, leaping, dancing, singing, he ushered the Apostles into the 
astonished temple. 



104 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

JEW, THE. 

1. A Liviny Evidence of God's Fulfilment of His Word. 

(282.) The Jew bartering bis beads with naked savages — bearding the 
Turk in the capital of Mohammedan power — braving in his furs the rigor 
of Russian winters — overreaching in China the inhabitants of the 
Celestial Empire — in Golconda buying diamonds — in our metropolis of 
the commercial world standing highest among her merchant princes — 
the Hebrew everywhere, and yet everywhere without a country ; with a 
religion, but without a temple ; with wealth, but without honor ; with 
ancient pedigree, but without ancestral possessions ; with no land to fight 
for, nor altars to defend, nor patrimonial fields to cultivate ; with chil- 
dren, and yet no child sitting under the trees that his grandsire planted ; 
but all floating about over the world like scattered fragments of a wreck 
upon the bosom of the ocean — he is a living evidence, that, what the 
Lord hath spoken, the Lord will do. 

2. Intellectual Character of the Jeio. 

(283.) Water, whether it springs on the shore or bubbles in the 
mountain well where the eagle dresses her plumes and the red deer slake 
their thirst, never rises higher than its fountain ; and if, in like manner, 
children's mental powers form a standard whereby to judge of their 
parents', we must believe Abraham, judging from his descendants, to 
have been in mind, as well as in piety, one of the greatest of men. 
Take, for instance, a skull of each of the different races of mankind, and 
placing them at random on a table before an anatomist, ask him to select 
that which indicates the highest mental capacity. Without knowing 
anything whatever of their history, from what graves they were ob- 
tained, or to what branches of the human family they belonged, he lays 
his hand at once on the skull of the Jew. This, take it for all in all, is 
the best on the table. Vastly superior to those of the aborigines of 
Australia and ancient Peruvians that, though separated by a great gulf 
from the animal creation, stand at the bottom of the human scale, it is- 
visibly superior to the skulls of those Greeks and Romans that in 
ancient, and also of those Teutonic races that in modern, times have 
marched at the head of civilization, and seem destined to rule the world. 
The star of Abraham is in the ascendant here. However morally de- 
based, the Jew stands pre-eminent for his mental powers, and has- 
retained his superiority in circumstances which have degraded other na- 
tions almost to the level of beasts. Amid the fire that has burned for 
ages, this bush remains unconsumed. Here then is a race which, after 
suffering oppressions and degradations sufficient to crush the very soul 



JUDGMENT, THE GENERAL. 105 

out of them, is mentally second to none, perhaps superior to any. This 
is a remarkable fact. It proves what the Bible leads us to believe, that 
a special Providence watches over the outcasts of Israel, preserving them 
for some grand end. 



JUDGMENT, THE GENERAL. 

1. God shall Reward Every Man According to His Work. 

(284.) And let us remember that it shall be with us as with those 
actors on the stage whom men applaud, not because of the parts they 
play, but of the way in which they play them. Well done from God, 
well done from Christ, well done from the tongues of ten thousand 
angels, shall crown the life of a good servant, but not the life of a bad 
sovereign. God has no respect for persons, but will reward every man, 
not according to his place, but according to the way he filled it. He 
shall reward every man according, to his work. 

2. Everything shall be Brought into. 

(285.) We shall meet again all we are doing and have done. The 
graves shall give up their dead, and from the tombs of oblivion the past 
shall give up all that it holds in keeping, to be witness for or witness 
against us. Oh, think of that, and in yonder hall of the Inquisition, see 
what its effect on us should be. Within those blood-stained walls, for 
whose atrocious cruelties Rome has yet to answer, one is under examina- 
tion. He has been assured that nothing he reveals shall be written for 
the purpose of being used against him. While making frank and ingenu- 
ous confession he suddenly stops. He is dumb — a mute. They ply 
him with questions, flatter him, threaten him ; he answers not a word. 
Danger makes the senses quick. His ear has caught a sound ; he list- 
ens ; it ties his tongue. An arras hangs beside him, and behind it he 
hears a pen running along the pages. The truth flashes on him. Be- 
hind that screen a scribe sits committing to the fatal page every word he 
says, and he shall meet it all again on the day of trial. Ah ! how sol- 
emn to think that there is such a pen going in heaven, and entering on 
the books of judgment all we say, or wish, all we think, we do. 

3. The Folly of Man in not Averting His Fate. 

(286.) It is alleged by travellers, that the ostrich, when pursued by 
its hunters, will thrust its head into a bush, and, without further attempt 
either at flight or resistance, quietly submit to the stroke of death. Men 
say that, having thus succeeded in shutting the pursuers out of its own 
sight, the bird is stupid enough to fancy that it has shut itself out of 



106 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

theirs, and that the danger, which it has concealed from its eyes, has 
ceased to exist. We doubt that. God makes no mistakes ; and, guid- 
ed as the lower animals are in all their instincts by infinite Wisdom, I 
fancy that a more correct knowledge of that creature would show, that 
this poor bird, which has thrust its head into the bush, and stands 
quietly to receive the shot, has been hunted to death. For hours the 
cry of its pursuers has rung in its startled ear ; for hours their feet have 
been on its weary track ; it has exhausted strength, and breath, and 
craft, and cunning, to escape ; and even yet, give it time to breathe — 
give it another chance — and it is away with the wind ; and with wings 
outspread, on rapid feet it spurns the burning sand. It is because 
escape is hopeless and death is certain that it has buried its head in that 
bush, and shut its eyes to a fate which it cannot avert. To man — 
rational and responsible man — belongs the folly of closing his eyes to a 
fate which he may avert, and thrusting his head into the bush while 
escape is possible ; and, because he can put death, and judgment, and 
eternity out of mind, living as if there were neither a bed of death nor 
bar of judgment. 



JUDGMENT, MAN'S. 

1. Crouching before Man' a Judgment. 

(287.) Yet see, how men of the noblest genius and proudest intellect 
have crouched, slave-like, before the world, laying their heads in the 
very dust at her feet. When Byron, for instance, stood aloft on the 
pinnacle of his fame, he confessed that the disapprobation of the mean- 
est critic gave him more pain than the applause of all the others gave 
him pleasure. Miserable confession, and miserable man ! not less a 
slave that laurels wreathed his brow, and that a star glittered on his 
breast. What a contrast do we see in Paul ! He was a freeman ! 
Like some tall rock, he stands erect ; unmoved from his place, or pur- 
pose, or judgment, or resolution, by the storm of a world's disapproba- 
tion raging fiercely around him. " With me," he says, " it is a very 
small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment ; . . . 
he that judgeth me is the Lord. ' ' 



JUSTICE OF GOD. 

1 . Justice of God Glorified. 

(288.) Justice did a stern but righteous act, when she hung up 
Hainan in the face of the sun, and before the eyes of the city — a warn- 



KWDJVfiSS. 107 

ing to all tyrants, and a terror to all sycophants ; yet it was a loftier 
and a happier exercise of her functions to call the Jew from obscurity, to 
marshal him along the crowded streets with a crestfallen enemy walking 
at his stirrup, and royal heralds going before to blow his fame, and ever 
and anon to cry, " Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king de- 
lighteth to honor." Even so, shall the justice of God be glorified when 
heads, now lying in the grave, are crowned with honor. 

2. Justice and Mercy Combined in the Work of Redemption. 

(289.) It is cruelty, not justice, that stands opposed to mercy. These 
attributes of the Godhead are not contrary the one to the other, as are 
light and darkness, fire and water, truth and falsehood, right and wrong. 
No ; like two streams which unite their waters to form a common 
river, justice and mercy are combined in the work of redemption. Like 
the two cherubims whose wings met above the ark — like the two devout 
and holy men who drew the nails from Christ's body, and bore it to 
"the grave — like the two angels who received it in charge, and, seated, 
•the one at the head, the other at the feet, kept silent watch over the 
precious treasure — justice and mercy are associated in the work of 
Christ ; they are the supporters of the shield on which the cross is em- 
blazoned ; they sustain the arms of our heavenly Advocate ; they form 
the two solid and eternal pillars of the Mediator's throne. On Calvary 
mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each 
other. 

3. God's Justice Conspicuous in Redemption. • 

(290. ) Justice is as conspicuous in redemption as the cross which illus- 
trated it. Sinners, indeed, are pardoned, but then, their sins are pun- 
ished ; the guilty are acquitted, but then, their guilt is condemned ; the 
sinner lives, but then, the surety dies ; the debtor is discharged, not, 
Tiowever, till the debt is paid. Dying, ' ' the just for the unjust, that he 
might bring us to God," Jesus satisfies for us ; and, as we have seen a 
discharged account pierced by a nail, and hung to gather cobwebs on 
the dusty wall, he who paid our debt, nor left us one farthing to pay, 
lias taken the handwriting that was against us and nailed it to his cross. 



KINDNESS. 

1. Kindness a Secret of Success. 

(291.) I have no doubt whatever that to the generous, kindly, loving 
■disposition which Joseph possessed, and all should cultivate, he owed 



108 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

not a little of his remarkable success. It won the regards and goodwill 
of others — kind affections often doing men such service as the arms 
which a creeping plant throws around a pole does it, when, springing 
from the ground, it rises by help of the very object it embraces. 



KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 

1. Rules of Other Kingdoms Reversed in Christ 1 s Kingdom. 

(292.) In your earthly kingdoms the rich and noble carry off the 
lion's share. It is high-born men and women that fill high places, and 
stand near our queen's throne ; but this kingdom bestows its noblest 
honors on the humble, the poor, the obscure, the meek, the lowly ; for 
" to the poor the gospel is preached," and " not many mighty, not 
many noble are called." More extraordinary than any of these things, 
all the ordinary rules of other kingdoms are reversed in this. Here, the 
way to grow rich is to become poor — the path to honor lies through 
shame — to enjoy rest we must plunge into a sea of troubles — peace is- 
only to be enjoyed in a state of war — who would live must die — and 
who would gain must part with all that men hold most dear. 

2. For the Poor and Humble. 

(293.) It is the high-born chiefly that approach the person of the 
sovereign, enjoy the honors of the palace, and fill the chief offices of the 
state. Royal favors seldom descend so low as humble life. The grace 
of our King, however, is like those blessed dews that, while the moun- 
tain tops remain dry, lie thick in the valleys ; and, leaving the proud 
and stately trees to stand without a gem, hang the lowly bush with dia- 
monds, and sow the sward broadcast with orient pearl. This is the 
kingdom for the mean, and the meek, and the poor, and the humble ! 
Its King has said, Not many mighty, not many noble, are called ; Blessed 
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

3. An Enduring One. 

(294.) His kingdom, it is " the kingdom" by way of excellence,, 
there being no other of which, having seen the rise, it shall not see also- 
the fall — the kingdom, in contradistinction to those which, rivers, 
shores, or mountains bound — many of which founded in injustice, and 
maintained by oppression, have tyrants for their rulers, and for their 
subjects slaves ; and all of which, if I may judge the future by the past, 
have this course to run — born, they grow, arrive at maturity, flourish 
for a longer or shorter period, then begin to decay ; and, sinking under 



KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 109 

the infirmities of age, or falling by the hands of violence, at length ex- 
pire — their palaces a heap of ruins, their kings a handful of dust. 

4. The True Subjects of Christ's Kingdom. 

(295.) Now, to this day, how many would accept of Jesus as king, 
would he but consent to their terms — allow them to indulge their lusts, 
and retain their sins ! If, like some Eastern princes, who leave the reins 
of government in other hands, he would rest contented with the shadow 
of royalty, with the mere name and empty title of a king, many would 
consent to be his subjects. But be assured that he accepts not the 
crown, if sin is to retain the sceptre. He requires of all who name his 
name, that they " depart from iniquity ;" and, with " holiness unto 
the Lord " written on their foreheads, that they take up their cross, and 
deny themselves daily, and follow him. 

5. The Divine Right of Christ's Kingship. 

(296.) There was an ancient and universal custom set aside, on his 
coronation day, by that great emperor who bestrode the world like a 
Colossus, till we locked him up in a sea-girt prison — chained him, like 
-an eagle, to its barren rock. Promptly as his great military genius was 
wont to seize some happy moment to turn the tide of battle, he seized 
the imperial crown. Regardless alike of all precedents, and of the 
presence of the Roman pontiff whose sacred office he assumed, he placed 
the crown on his own head, and, casting an eagle eye over the applaud- 
ing throng, stood up, in the pride of his power, every inch of him a 
king. The act was like the man — bold, decisive ; nor was it in a sense 
untrue, its language this, The crown I owe to no man ; I myself have 
won it ; my own right arm hath gotten me the victory. Yet, with some 
such rare exceptions, the universal custom, on such occasions, is to per- 
form this great act as in the presence of God ; and, adding the solemni- 
ties of religion to the scene, by the hand of her highest minister to 
crown the sovereign. It is a graceful and a pious act, if, when religion 
is called upon to play so conspicuous a part, on such a stage, and in the 
presence of such a magnificent assembly, all parties intend thereby to 
acknowledge that crowns are the gift of God, that sovereigns as well as 
subjects are answerable for their stewardship, and that by Him whose 
minister performs the crowning act, kings reign, and princes decree 
justice. 

(297.) According to that scripture, God sets up one and puts down 
another, plucks the sceptre from the hand of this man, and gives it to 
that, and, as our days have seen, makes fugitives of kings, to raise a 



110 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

beggar from the dust and the needy from the dunghill, and set him with 
princes. And what he does in an ordinary and providential sense to all 
kings, he did in a high, and pre-eminent, and special sense to his own 
Son. The " divine right of kings," with which courtiers have flattered 
tyrants, and tyrants have sought to hedge round their royalty, is a 
fiction. In other cases a mere fiction, it is in Christ's case a great fact. 
The crown that rests on his head was placed there by the hands of 
Divinity. It was from his eternal Father that he received the reward of 
his cross. 



LAWS OF THE BIBLE. 

1. Criminal and Civil Laws of Moses. 

(298.) As a legislator, besides moral, Moses established criminal and 
civil laws which, unless in so far as they were specially adapted to the 
circumstances of the Israelites, our senators and magistrates would do 
well to copy. Inspired with the profoundest wisdom, they are patterns 
to all ages of equity and justice. For instance, how much kinder to the 
poor, and less burdensome to the community, than ours, are what may 
be called the " poor laws" of Moses ! How much more wise than ours 
those that dealt with theft, thus far that, requiring the thief to restore 
fourfold the value of what he had stolen, and work till he had done so, 
they assigned to that crime a punishment, which at once secured repara- 
tion to the plundered and the reformation of the plunderer. Nor less 
wise, I may add, those sanitary laws of which, though long neglected, 
late years and bitter experience have been teaching us the importance. 
It is only now, with all our boasted progress in arts and science, that we 
are awakening to the value of such regulations as, securing cleanliness 
in the habits and in the homes of the people, promote their health and 
preserve their lives. 



LAW, THE. 

1. The Law is Not the Gate of Life. 

(299.) The law is not now the gate of life ; yet although it has ceased 
to be the gate, it has not ceased, and never shall cease, to be the rule of 
life. We preach, indeed, a free and full salvation ; and we glory in the 
theme. We say that the greatest lawbreaker may be saved ; the foulest 
sinner washed white as snow ; the basest of the base, the vilest of the 
vile, exalted to a throne in heaven, and that as no obedience rendered to 



LOVE TO CUBIST. Ill 

the law since the fall of Adam can open heaven to fallen man, so since 
the death of Christ no disobedience can shut its gates against him. 

2. The Law Written Upon the Heart. 

(300.) Dr. Livingstone tells us that he found the rudest tribes of 
Africa, on whose Cimmerian darkness no straggling ray of revealed 
truth had ever fallen, ready to admit that they were sinners. Indeed, 
they hold almost everything to be sin which, as such, is forbidden in the 
word of God. Nor is it possible to read his clear statements on that 
subject, without arriving at this very interesting and important con- 
clusion, that the ten commandments received from God's own hand by 
Moses on Mount Sinai, are but the copy of a much older law — that law 
which the finger of his Maker wrote on Adam's heart, and which, though 
sadly defaced by the fall, may still, like the inscription on a time-eaten, 
moss-grown stone, be traced on ours. 

3. The Law Magnified in Jesus' 1 Death. 

(301.) Many years ago a horrible crime was committed in a neighbor- 
ing country. It was determined that the guilty man, whoever he might 
be, so soon as he was discovered and convicted, should die. He had 
fled ; but the eye of justice tracked him to his hiding-place. Dragged 
from it, he is arraigned at the bar ; and fancy, if you can, the feelings 
of his judge, when, in the pale, trembling, miserable, guilty wretch, he 
recognized his own son — his only son ! What an agonizing struggle now 
began in that father's bosom ! He is torn between the conflicting 
claims of nature and duty. The public indignation against the criminal 
is lost in pity for the father, as he sits there transfixed with horror, 
overwhelmed with grief, while his child, with clasped hands and eyes 
that swim in tears, implores a father's pity. Duty bears nature down. 
He pronounces sentence of death ; but in passing it on his son, he passes 
it on himself. Nature would have her own. He rises ; he leaves the 
bench ; he hastens home ; he lies down on his bed ; nor ever rising from 
it, dies of a broken heart. God cannot die ; yet, when, rather than his 
holy law should be broken with impunity, he gave up his love to bleed, 
his beloved Son to die, a substitute for us, oh, how did the blood which 
dyed that cross dye his law in colors of the brightest holiness ! 



LOVE TO CHRIST. 

1. Love to Christ a Strong Passion 

(302.) True piety is not hypocrisy ; and it is due alike to Christ and 
the interests of religion, that the world should know that the love his 



112 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

people bear for him is a deeper affection than what the mother cherishes 
for the babe that hangs helpless on her bosom ; a stronger passion than 
the miser feels for the yellow gold he clutches. With the hand of the 
robber compressing his throat, to have his gray hairs spared, he would 
give it all for dear life ; but loving Jesus whom they never saw, better 
than father, or mother, or sister, or brother, or lover, or life itself, thou- 
sands have given up all for him. Not regretting, but rejoicing in their 
sacrifices, they have gone bravely for his cause to the scaffold and the 
stake. 

2. Love as Strong as Death. 

(303.) I look on this mother, who stands with her child on the side 
of the sinking wreck, to catch the last chance of a passing boat. She 
catches it — not to leap in herself ; but, lifting her boy in her arms, and 
printing a mother's last kiss upon his rosy lips, she drops him in, and 
remains behind herself to drown and die. Or I look at that maid in old 
border story, who, having caught a glance of the arrow that, shot by a 
rival's hand, came from the bushes on the other bank, flung herself be- 
fore her lover, and received the fatal shot in her own true and faithful 
heart. I look at these things, and, seeing that love is strong as death, 
I urge you to cultivate the love of Jesus, and go in its divine strength to 
the field of duty, and the altar of sacrifice. 

3. The Believer's Motive Power. 

(304.) In the doctrines of grace holiness holds a most important 
place ; a place so important — so prominent and conspicuous — that the 
notion, once current, that the doctrine of a free salvation through the 
mercy of God and the merits of Christ alone is unfavorable to the inter- 
ests of morality, can only be ascribed to the malice of the natural heart, 
or the grossest ignorance. These doctrines set forth the love of Christ 
as a believer's great motive power, and it might be a sufficient refutation 
of the calumny to quote the glowing exclamation of the poet : 

" Thou bleeding Lamb ! 
The best morality is love of Thee." 

4. The Christian' 1 s Great Strength. 

(305.) Samson's great strength lay in his hair. Shorn of that, he 
was like other men. The Christian's great strength lies in his love. 

5. Love to Christ Overcoming the Love to the World. 

(306.) The new love of Christ, and the old love of the world, may 
still meet in opposing currents ; but in the war and strife of these an- 



LOVE OF GOD. 113 

tagonistic principles, the celestial shall overpower the terrestrial, as, at 
the river's mouth, I have seen the ocean tide, when it came rolling in 
with a thousand billows at its back, fill all the channel, carry all before 
its conquering swell, dam up the fresh water of the land, and drive it back 
-with resistless power. 

LOVE OF GOD. 

1. Cannot Measure the Paternal Love of God. 

(307.) I know a father's heart. Have I not seen the quiver of a 
father's lip, the tear start into his eye, and felt his heart in the grasp of 
his hand, when I expressed some good hope of a fallen child ? Have I 
not seen a mother, when her infant was tottering in the path of mettled 
coursers, with foam spotting their necks, and fire flying from their feet, 
dash like a hawk across the path, and pluck him from instant death ? 
Have I not seen a mother, who sat at the coffin-head, pale, dumb, tear- 
less, rigid, terrible in grief, spring from her chair, seize the coffin which 
we were carrying away, and, with shrieks fit to pierce a heart of stone, 
struggle to retain her dead ? If we, that are but worms of the earth, 
will peril life for our children, and, when they are moldered into dust, 
cannot think of our dead, nor visit their cold and lonesome grave, but 
our breasts are wrung, and our wounds bleed forth afresh, can we 
adequately conceive or measure, far less exaggerate — even with our 
fancy at its highest strain, the paternal love of God ? 

2. God Loves to the End. 

(308.) The sun that shines on you shall set, and summer streams 
*hall freeze, and deepest wells go dry — but not his love. His love is a 
stream that never freezes, a fountain that never fails, a sun that never 
sets in night, a shield that uever breaks in fight ; whom he loveth, he 
loveth to the end. 

3. Christ Died for us because God Loved us, 

(309.) The central truth of the Bible, that on which I lay the great- 
est stress and rest my strongest hopes, is this, that God does not love us 
because Christ died for us, but that Christ died for us because God 
loved us. I do not disparage the work of Christ ; far be such a thought 
from me. Yet Christ himself is the gift of divine love, the divine ex- 
pression of our Father's desire to be reconciled. The Lord of angels 
Tianging on a mother's bosom, the Creator of heaven and earth bending 
to a humble task, the judge of all standing accused in the place of com- 
mon felons, the Son of his Father's love nailed amid derision to an 



114 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

ignominious cross, death rudely seizing him, the dark grave receiving 
him, we owe to the love of God. God so loved the world, that he gave 
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life. What love do we owe him who so 
loved us ! 

4. The Love of God Commended toward us. 

(310.) A spectator of the scenes, the dreadful, tragic scenes, amid 
which Judah's sun set in blood forever, tells that wood was wanting 
for crosses, and crosses were wanting for bodies. Yet had Babylon's, 
Tyre's, Jerusalem's, all these crosses been raised to save you, and on each 
cross of that forest, not a man, but a dying angel hung, had all heaven 
been crucified, here is greater love, a greater spectacle. God commend- 
eth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died 
for us. 

5. The Love of God Passes Knowledge. 

(311.) I can measure parental love — how broad, and long, and strong, 
and deep it is. It is a sea — a deep sea, which mothers and fathers only 
can fathom. But the love displayed on yonder hill and bloody cross 
where God' s own Son is perishing for us, nor man nor angel has a line 
to measure. The circumference of the earth, the altitude of the sun, 
the distance of the planets — these have been determined ; but the height, 
depth, breadth, and length of the love of God passeth knowledge. 

6. God Delights in Love. 

(312). The minnow plays in a shallow pool, and leviathan cleaves 
the depths of ocean — winged insects sport in a sunbeam, and winged 
angels sing before the throne ; and whether we fix our eye on the one 
or the other, the whole fabric of creation appears to prove that Jehovah 
delights in the evolution of his powers, in the display of his wisdom, 
love, and goodness ; and, just as it is to the delight which God enjoys 
in the exercise of them that we owe this beautiful creation, so it is to 
his delight in the exercise of his pity, love, and mercy, that we owe sal- 
vation, with all its blessings. 



LOVE TOWARD GOD. 

1. Love to God should be Inflamed. 

(313.) Inflame your love by looking to Christ. Go often, and, with 
the shepherds, gaze on the heavenly babe laid on a pallet of straw in the 
corner of a manger. With the disciples, accompany him to Gethsem- 
ane, and sit beneath her hoary olives to listen in the stilly night to the 



LOVE TO OTHERS. 115 

moans and groans of the Son in the hands of his Father. Or join the 
weeping women, and, with the other Marys and his fainting mother, 
take up your station near the awful cross, and meditate on these things 
till you can say with David, " While I was musing, the fire hurned. " 

2. The Love of God should Replace the Love of the World. >.i'i 

(314.) It is with man's soul as with this plant which is creeping on 
the earth ; to upbraid it for its baseness, to reproach it for the mean 
objects around which its tendrils are entwined, will never make it stand 
erect ; you cannot raise it unless you present some lofty object to which 
it may cling. It is with our hearts as with vessels ; you cannot empty 
them of one element without admitting or substituting another in its 
place. And just as I can empty a vessel filled with air or with oil by 
pouring water into it, because water is the heavier fluid, or as I can 
empty a vessel of water by pouring quicksilver into it, because the 
specific gravity of mercury is greatly in excess of that of water, so the 
only way by which you can empty my heart of the world, and the love 
of the world, is by filling it with the love of God. 

3. Man Must Love. 

(315.) We are constituted with affections, of which we can no more 
divest ourselves than of our skin. Be the object which we love noble 
or base, good or bad, generous or selfish, holy or sinful, belonging to 
earth or to heaven, some object we must love. It were as easy for a 
man to live without breathing, as to live without loving. It is not more 
natural for fire to burn, or light to shine, than for man to love. And 
the commandment, ' ' Love not the world, neither the things that are in 
the world," had been utterly impracticable, and impossible, save in 
conjunction with the other commandment, ' ' Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind." 



LOVE TO OTHERS. 

1. Taking a Loving Lnterest in the Salvation of Others. 

(316.) Although every minister were as a flaming fire in the service 
of his God, every bishop were a Latimer, every reformer were a Knox, 
every preacher were a Whitefield, every missionary were a Martyn, the 
work is greater than ministers can accomplish ; and if men will not 
submit that the interests of nations and the success of armies shall: be 



116- OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

sacrificed to routine and forms of office, much less should these be toler- 
ated where the cause of souls is at stake. I say, therefore, to every 
Christian, " the Master hath need " of you. Take a living, loving 
interest in souls. Don't leave them to perish. It may be the duty of 
others permanently and formally to instruct, but it is yours to enlist. 
" This honor have all his saints." 



2. Example of a Fugitive Slave. 

(317.) In the touching narrative of a fugitive slave I have read how, 
when he himself had escaped, the thought of his mother, a mother 
dear, and sisters, still in bondage, haunted him night and day, embit- 
tering the sweetness of his own cup. He found no rest. Liberty to 
him was little more than a name, until they also were free. And surely 
one may wonder how Christians can give God any rest, or take it them- 
selves, while those near and dear to them are in the gall of bitterness, 
and in the bond of iniquity. 

3. A Love that Seeketh not its Own. 

(318.) On the deck of a foundering vessel stood a negro slave. The 
last man left on board, he was about to step into the life-boat. She 
was already laden almost to the gunwale, to the water-edge. Bearing 
in his arms what seemed a heavy bundle, the boat's crew, who with 
difficulty kept her afloat in the roaring sea, refused to receive him. If 
he came, it must be unencumbered and alone. On that they insisted. 
He must either leave that bundle and leap in, or throw it in and stay to 
perish. Pressing it to his bosom, he opened its folds ; and there, warm- 
ly wrapped, lay two little children, whom their father had committed 
to liis care. He kissed them ; and bade the sailors carry his affection- 
ate farewell to his master, telling him how faithfully he had fulfilled his 
charge. Then lowering the children into the boat, which pushed off, 
the dark man stood alone on the deck, to go down with the sinking 
ship, a noble example of bravery, and true fidelity, and the " love that 
seeketh not its own." 

4. Expansive Character of Christian Love. 

(319.) By this story Jesus teaches us to do good to all men as we 
have opportunity, and to rejoice in the opportunities of doing it. If 
any man's sorrows need our sympathy, his bodily or spiritual wants our 
help, let us think no more of asking whether he belongs to our country 
or family, our party or church, than if we saw him stretching out his 
hands from the window of a burning house, or found him, like this ob- 



LOVE TO OTHERS. 117 

ject of the Samaritan's kindness, expiring in a pool of blood. Thus 
Christ loved us ; and thus he teaches us to love one another. 

5. The Discoverer of a Fountain Makes it Known to Others. 

(320.) Those who find treasures in the Gospel, do not hide them. 
On the contrary, they seek to make the great discovery known, and to 
communicate its benefits to all. There is no temptation to do other- 
wise, to keep it to ourselves, since it has blessings in the pardon and 
peace of God enough for us and for all others. It is as if one of a 
caravan that had sunk on the burning desert, were, in making a last 
effort for life, to discover no muddy pool, but a vast fountain — cool as 
the snows that replenished its spring, and pure as the heavens that were 
reflected on its bosom. He revives at the blessed sight, and, pushing on 
to the margin, stoops to drink ; yet ere his thirst is fully quenched, see 
how he speeds away to pluck his friends from the arms of death ; and, 
hark ! how he shouts, making the lone desert ring to the cry, " Ho, 
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." 

6. Loving Efforts for the Perishing. 

(321.) During a heavy storm off the coast of Spain, a dismasted 
merchantman was observed by a British frigate drifting before the gale. 
Every eye and glass were on her, and a canvas shelter on a deck almost 
level with the sea suggested the idea that there yet might be life on 
board. "With all his faults, no man is more alive to humanity than the 
rough and hardy mariner ; and so the order instantly sounds to put the 
ship about, and presently a boat puts off with instructions to bear down 
upon the wreck. Away after that drifting hulk go these gallant men 
through the swell of a roaring sea ; they reach it ; they shout ; and 
now a strange object rolls out of that canvas screen against the lee shroud 
of a broken mast. Hauled into the boat, it proves to be the trunk of a 
man, bent head and knees together, so dried and shrivelled as to be 
hardly felt within the ample clothes, and so light that a mere boy lifted 
it on board. It is laid on the deck ; in horror and pity the crew gather 
round it ; it shows signs of life ; they draw nearer ; it moves, and 
then mutters — mutters in a deep, sepulchral voice — " There is another 
man." Saved himself, the first use the saved one made of speech was 
to seek to save another. Oh ! learn that blessed lesson. Be daily 
practising it. And so long as in our homes, among our friends, in this 
wreck of a world which is drifting down to ruin, there lives an uncon- 
verted one, there is ' ' another man, ' ' let us go to that man, and plead 
for Christ ; go to Christ and plead for that man ; the cry, " Lord save 
me, I perish," changed into one as welcome to a Saviour's ear, " Lord 
save them, they perish. " , 



118 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 



MAN. 



1. The Worth and Dignity of. 

(322.) If the value of anything is to be estimated by its price, to 
what an immeasurable height of worth does it exalt man that God gave 
his Son to redeem him ! — redeeming him not with corruptible things 
such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a 
lamb without spot or blemish. So far from cherishing low views of 
man, I believe that a gem of inestimable value lies concealed beneath 
the beggar's rags. A soul is there of divine-like faculties and of price- 
less worth : and a body also, which, though the seat of appetites that 
man shares with brutes, and of passions, perhaps, such as burn in the 
breasts of fiends, may become more sacred than any fane built by hu- 
man hands — a temple of the Holy Ghost. There is a worth in man no 
meanness of circumstances, no degradation of character can altogether 
conceal. He is a jewel though buried in a heap of corruption ; the 
vilest outcast, possessing powers and affections that need only to be sanc- 
tified to ally him with angels, and make publicans and harlots fit for 
heaven. 

2. Man's Capacity and Incapacity. 

(323.) Endowed with an intellect which, though defaced, has survived 
the Fall, his capacities and capabilities are great. As if he were a God, 
he measures the heavens, weighs the hills in scales, and the mountains 
in a balance. He subdues the elements, rides on the wind, rides on the 
waves ; makes the lightning his swift messenger ; and yoking fire and 
water to his chariot wheels, compels them to serve him. Prolific in 
invention and skilful in arts, as if he were a creator, he can make the 
elements he subdues. Image of Him who giveth rain, whose voice is 
heard thundering in many waters, who casteth out his ice in morsels, 
and M'attereth his hoar frost like ashes — man makes snow, and ice, and 
rain, and dew, and lightning ; and, falling on the strange discovery that 
the brilliant diamond is formed of the very same matter as coal, he has 
boldly pressed on his Maker's steps, and all but succeeded in rivalling 
nature's gems. But though it were hard to say — such is the progress 
of arts and science — what human skill may not accomplish, it has its 
bounds. There is a line across which it has never passed, and cannot 
pass ; where a voice is heard, saying to the boldest adventurer, Hither 
shalt thou come, but no farther. By no skill or combinations of 
matter can man give being to the lowest living thing. 

3. Only Two Classes of Men in God's Sight. 
(324.) Mankind present all shades of color — from the negro, God's 



MARRIAGE. . 119 

image in ebony, as one said, to the fair-skinned, blue-eyed, golden- 
haired types of our Scandinavian ancestors — all varieties also of disposi- 
tion, from the penuriousness of Nabal to the affection embalmed by 
David in this immortal song: "I am distressed for thee, my brother 
Jonathan : very pleasant hast thou been unto me : thy love to me was 
wonderful, passing the love of women, ' ' — all degrees also of sense, from 
the fool who, untaught by experience, though pounded in a mortar 
comes out the same, to those astute, far-seeing, and long-headed men, 
whose utterances, like the counsels of Ahitophel, are " as if a man in- 
quired at the oracle of God" — and all differences also of outward con- 
dition, from Lazarus covered with sores and clothed in rags nor ever 
enjoying one good full meal, upward to him who, clothed in purple 
and fine linen, fares sumptuously every day. Yet in God's sight the 
whole human family is divisible into two classes, and only two — the good 
and bad, the chaff and wheat, the wheat and tares, the sheep and goats, 
the converted and the unconverted — those that, still at enmity with God, 
lie under condemnation, and such as, renewed in the spirit of their 
minds and reconciled to him by the blood of his Son, are in a state of 
grace. 



MARRIAGE. 

1, Unwise Marriages. 

(325.) Some choose their wives like as our Grandmother Eve did the 
apple, because they are pleasant to the eyes to be looked upon ; others 
out of a love of their wealth, saying of their wives what the Sechemites 
did of the sons of Jacob, " Shall not all their herds and cattle be ours." 

2. The First Marriage. 

(326.) In looking back to the first marriage, I cannot but think that 
it was to make its tie more tender that God chose the singular plan he 
pursued in providing the man with a mate. No other way would have 
occurred to our fancy of making woman than that of another clay figure, 
modelled by God's hands in the female form, and inspired by his breath 
with life. In making her out of Adam, and from the part of his body 
lying nearest to the heart, while he lay in the mysterious sleep from 
which he woke to gaze on a beautiful form reposing by his side, God 
gave a peculiar emphasis and power to the figure ' ' they twain shall be 
one flesh" — one in sympathy, in mind, in affections, and in interests ; 
nothing but death afterward to divide them. 



120 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 



MEANS. 



1. Our Confidence should not be in Means. 

(327.) Nothing, indeed, so much hinders the cure of a soul as what 
helps the cure of a body. Many as the analogies between the processes 
of grace and nature are, here there is none — but a total dissimilarity. 
In that anxious sick-room, where life and death struggle for the mas- 
tery, it is all-important to sustain the patient's strength. This offers, 
so to speak, his only chance ; and for that end there is no charm in 
drug or stimulant more potent than boundless confidence in the skill of 
the physician. Such confidence in man lies at the foundation of the 
physician's success ; such confidence in man is fatal to a minister's. 
This may be one reason why, with so many sermons, there are so few 
conversions ; why, among the crowds that throng God's houses, so 
many depart unblessed, unsaved, un sanctified — no better, but rather 
worse. God will not give his blessing to such as, shutting him out, put 
their confidence in the use of means — in the virtue of sacraments or the 
power of sermons, in dead books or living preachers. He is a jealous 
God, and will not give his glory to another. 

2. Means Impotent without God's Blessing. 

(328.) The more it shines, and the more it rains, the thicker the dews 
of night, and the hotter the sun of day, the faster the dead tree rots ; 
for those agents in nature which promote the vegetation and develop the 
beauty of life, the sounding shower, the silent dews, the summer heat, 
have no other effect on death than to hasten its putridity and decay. 
And even so, furnishing us with an impressive lesson of the impotency 
of all means that are unaccompanied by the divine blessing — was it with 
God's ancient people. He sent them servants, and he sent them suffer- 
ings ; but, until the Spirit of life descended from on high, their habits 
only grew more depraved, their condition more desperate, their profanity 
more profane. 

3. Unlikely Means in Nature. 

(329.) For the purpose of teaching a truth that should inspire and 
animate our prayers, God has often wrought out his ends by the most 
unlikely means. There are objects in nature not less astonishing for the 
smallness of the worker than the greatness of the work. Such are the 
coral walls around those lovely isles that, carpeted with flowers, clothed 
with palms, and enjoying an everlasting summer, lie scattered like gems 
on the bosom of the Pacific. These, with the ocean roaring in its fury 
before them, and behind them the lagoon lying like a molten mirror 
broken only by the dash of a sea-bird or the dip of passing oar, are 



MEANS. 121 

stupendous ramparts. Compared to them our greatest breakwaters 
dwindle into insignificance. One of these reefs off the coast of New 
Holland is a thousand miles in length, and how many hundred feet in 
depth, I know not. Yet the masons that build these are creatures so 
small as to be almost invisible. Such mighty works does God accom- 
plish by instruments so mean ! 

4. Which seem Unfitted to the End. 

(330.) Nothing is more remarkable in the Bible than to see how 
God, as if to teach us to trust in nothing and in none but himself, 
selects means that seem the worst fitted to accomplish his end. Does 
he choose an ambassador to Pharaoh ? — it is a man of stammering 
tongue. Are the streams of Jericho to be sweetened ? — salt is cast into 
the spring. Are the eyes of the blind to be opened ? — they are rubbed 
with clay. Are the battlements of a city to be thrown down ? — the 
means employed is, not the blast of a mine, but the breath of an empty 
trumpet. Is a rock to be riven ? — the lightning is left to sleep above 
and the earthquake with its throes to sleep below, and the instrument 
is one, a rod, much more likely to be shivered on the rock than to shiver 
it. Is the world to be converted by preaching, and won from sensual 
delights to a faith whose symbol is a cross and whose crown is to be 
won among the fires of martyrdom ? — leaving schools, and halls, and 
colleges, God summons his preachers from the shores of Galilee. 
The helm of the church is entrusted to hands that had never steered 
aught but a fishing-boat ; and by the mouth of one who had been its 
bloodiest persecutor, Christ pleads his cause before the philosophers 
of Athens and in the palaces of Rome. 

5. Our Eyes and Our Hopes should be on God when Using Means. 

(331.) It is with man and God in the production of spiritual, as with 
the skies and the soil in the production of material, fruit. Gathering 
harvests each successive year from fields whose wealth of fruitfulness 
seems exhaustless, we say, How bountiful is the earth ! — the world's, 
like the widow's, meal-barrel, is never empty. We speak of the fruits 
of earth, and the flowers of earth, and the harvests of earth ; but these, 
her offspring, have another parent. Heaven claims their sweet juices, 
and fragrant odors, and glorious colors, as hers, and most her own. 
To the treasures of light, heat, rain, and dews, poured from exhaustless 
skies on the dull cold soil, earth's flowers owe their beauty, her gardens 
their fruits, her fields their golden harvests. Each, at any rate, has its 
own part to do ; nor would a husbandman labor to less purpose under a 
sunless sky on fields bound hard with frost and buried in perpetual snow, 
than preachers without the cheering, warming, enlivening influences of 



122 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

the Sun of Righteousness, the dews of grace, and the blessing of the 
Spirit. Man's is but a husbandman's office — to plant ; to water ; 
nothing more. " Paul," as the apostle himself says, " planteth, Apollos 
watereth, but God giveth the increase ; so, then, neither is he that 
planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the in- 
crease." And thus, whether we preach, or are preached to, when most 
diligent in the use of means, let a sense of our inability turn our eyes 
and all our hopes on God. 

6. God Accomplishes Great Purposes by Unlikely Means. 
(332.) But we have not to go to nature to see God accomplishing 
great purposes by unlikely means. The Bible is full of such examples. 
We should have committed the treasure of divine truth to the charge of 
some mighty monarch, and called the Saviour of the world from the 
loins of a Cyrus or a Caesar — of one whose weakness should not tempt 
him to seek safety in a lie, and whose family should have been in no 
danger of dying through famine. My ways are not as your ways, says 
God, neither are my thoughts as your thoughts. In Abraham, an 
obscure Chaldean, an exile, a wanderer, without any home but a tent 
or property in the soil but a grave, God puts the dearest interests of 
mankind into the weakest hands. In that patriarch the hopes of the 
world hang on a man around whose head swords are flashing, and into 
whose breast — but that his steward perhaps in the battle he fought to 
rescue Lot thrusts it aside — the robber buries his spear. In him and 
Sarah the hopes of the world are hung on a pair whose bed is childless, 
and on whose heads time has shed its snows. And again, when a child 
is born to them in Isaac, the salvation of a lost world hangs by a single 
strand : and again in Jacob's family, it turns on a dream and fortunes 
as unlikely as any that fill the pages of a romance. With Abraham in 
the battle ; with Isaac on the altar ; with Joseph in the dungeon ; with 
Moses cast on the water ; with Rahab in the beleaguered city ; on yon 
field, where, with two armies looking on, a stripling goes out to meet the 
giant ; on yon plain, where, through the midnight gloom, we see a 
mother hurrying with her babe from the swords of Herod and the mas- 
sacre of Bethlehem, how often was the light of truth nearly extinguished, 
the ark that carried the hopes of the world all but wrecked ! Never to 
human sight was good ship more nearly wrecked ! 



MERCY OF GOD. 
1. Mercy without Merit. 
(333.) What idea has he formed of God who expects less of him than 
he would expect of any earthly mother ? Let her be a queen. She is 



MERCY OF GOD. 123 

a mother ; and under the impulse of feelings that reign alike in palaces 
and in cottages, how would that woman spring from her throne to em- 
brace a lost babe ; and, weeping tears of joy, press it to her jewelled 
bosom, though plucked from the foulest ditch, and wrapped in tainted 
rags ? He knows little of human nature, fallen as it is, who fancies 
any mother turning from the plaintive cry and imploring arms of her 
offspring because, forsooth, it was restored to her in loathsome attire. 
And he is still more ignorant of " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ " who fancies that, unless man can make out some merit, he will 
receive no mercy. 

2. Indiscriminating Mercy. 

(334.) Some have fancied that they honor God most when, sinking 
all other attributes in mercy — indiscriminating mercy — they represent 
him as embracing the world in his arms — and receiving to his bosom 
with equal affection the sinners that hate, and the saints that love him. 
They cannot claim originality for this idea : its authorship belongs to 
the u father of lies." Satan said so before them. It is the very doc- 
trine that ruined this world. The serpent said to the woman, " Thou 
shalt not surely die. ' ' 

3. Pitying Mercy. 

(335.) Saving, gentle, pitying mercy, turns no more aside from the 
foulest wretch, than the wind that kisses her faded cheek, or the sun- 
beam that visits as brightly a murderer's cell as a minister's study. Nay 
— though the holiest of all kingdoms — while we see a Pharisee stand 
•astonished to be shut out, mark how, when she approaches, who, weep- 
ing, trembling all over, hardly dares lift her hand to knock, the door 
flies wide open ; and the poor harlot enters to be washed, and robed, 
and forgiven, and kindly welcomed. 

4. The Earth is Full of God's Mercy. 

(336.) Mercies arrive on the wings of every hour ; mercies supply 
our table ; mercies flow in life's brimming cup. They fall in every 
shower, and shine in every sunbeam. They lie as thick around man's 
tent, as desert manna in the days of old. Here, mercy runs to meet the 
returning prodigal, and opens her arms to fold him to her bosom. 
Here, she pleads with sinners, and pronounces pardon over the chief of 
them. Here, she weeps with sufferers, and dries the tear upon sorrow's 
•cheek. And here, eyeing the storm, she launches her life-boat through 
foaming breakers, and pulls for the wreck where souls are perishing. 
It is her blessed hand which rings the Sabbath bell, and her voice which, 
on savage shores or from Christian pulpits, proclaims a Saviour for the 



124 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

lost. None she despises ; she despairs of none ; and, not to be scared' 
away by foulest sin, she stands by its guilty bed, and, bending down to 
death's dull ear — when the twelfth hour is just about to strike — she looks 
into the glassy eye and cries, Believe, O believe, only believe, " who- 
soever believeth in the Lord Jesus shall not perish, but have everlasting 
life." 

5. Hope for the Vilest in Goofs Mercy. 
(337.) If God saves — not because we deserve mercy — but that his 
own great mercy may be illustrated in saving, ah ! then there is hope 
for me — yes, although thou wert an adulterer, a thief, a murderer, the 
vile wretch who spit in Jesus' face, the ruffian who forced the thorny 
crown deep into his bleeding brow, although thou wert that very soldier 
who buried the lance in Jesus' side, and just returning from Calvary, 
with the blood of Christ's heart red on the spear head, I would stop 
then in thy way to say, there is hope for thee. Oh, this has inspired 
with hope souls which had otherwise despaired, and gilded the edges of 
guilt's darkest cloud. In circumstances where we would have been 
dumb — opening not the mouth — when called to the dying bed of vilest,, 
lowest sin, it has unsealed our lips, and lent wings to prayer. 

6. Mercy Baring Her Own Bosom. 

(338.) To the surprise of angels, from out the light that veils the 
throne, a beautiful form steps forth, and Mercy, arresting the uplifted 
arm, turns its weapon from man on her own bared, spotless, loving 
bosom. In the Son of God about to become incarnate, she says — 
" Lo ! I come to do thy will, O God." Ready both to satisfy and 
suffer for them, Jesus interposes for his elect as he did for his disciples, 
when, stepping in between them and the armed band, he said — " I am. 
he ; let these go their way." 



MIRACLES. 

1 . Miracles not Excluded by the Facts of Science. 

(339.) Again in the last days, according to St. Peter, there were 
scoffers to arise, asserting " that all things remain as they were from 
the beginning of the creation." So said David Hume ; and so still say 
those who, in opposition to Moses and to the miracles of Scripture, take 
their stand on the uniform successions, and invariable operations of the 
laws of Nature. But here the philosopher's geology and our theology 
are at one. The most novel discoveries of our age are in harmony with- 



NATURAL MAN. 125 

the oldest statements of revelation. They prove that there have been no 
«uch invariable operations as would exclude the possibility, or proba- 
bility of miracles. They demonstrate what Moses asserts, that all things 
have not remained as they were from the beginning. They show causes 
•even now at work sufficient in the course of time to bring about the 
grand catastrophe that, with a God in judgment and a world in flames, 
shall usher in a new era — ' ' the new heavens, and the new earth, wherein 
■dwelleth righteousness." 



NATURAL MAN. 

1. Fine Specimens of the Natural Man. 

(340.) And as we have rooted up from the moor some wild flower to 
blow and shed its fragrance in a sweeter than its native home, have we 
not longed to do the same with these fine specimens of the natural man ? 
Transplanted by grace into the garden of the Lord, baptized with the 
dews of heaven, converted to the faith, they would be flowers fit to form 
a, wreath for the brow that men wreathed with thorns. I am com- 
pelled to acknowledge that I have known some, whom even charity 
•could not reckon among true Christians, who, yet in point of natural 
virtues, put Christians to shame. 

2. The Affections of the Natural Man. 

(341.) The affections of the natural man are like the branches of what 
are called weeping trees — they droop to the earth, and sweep the 
ground ; harmless or deleterious, they are all directed earthward. This 
world is his god ; his heaven is on earth ; the paradise he seeks is here; 
Tiis ten commandments are the opinions of men ; his sins are his pleas- 
ures ; his prayers are a task ; his Sabbaths are his longest, weariest 
days ; and, although no sheeted ghosts rise at midnight and walk the 
churchyard to scare him, he has, in thoughts of God, of judgment, of 
eternity, spectres that haunt him, and to escape from which he will fly 
into the arms of sin. 

3. At Enmity with God. 

(342.) The footprints of a man are not more visible on the surface of 
new-fallen snow than are the proofs of a Divine power and presence 
throughout all the kingdom of Nature : nor is there need to quote 
Scripture to prove, and adduce crimes to illustrate, our depravity, and 
how the " carnal mind is enmity against God," so long as we have 
philosophers, so called, who refer everything to mere material agencies ; 



126 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

and excluding all recognition of a Supreme Intelligence, recall these 
words of an Apostle, " The world by wisdom knew not God." 

4. The Eyes of Our Understanding are Darkened. 

(343.) I can fancy few sadder sights than an entire family, parents 
and children, all blind — a home where the flowers have no beauty, the 
night has no stars, the morning no blushing dawn, and the azure sky 
no glorious sun — a home, where they have never looked on each other's 
faces ; but a blind father sits by the dull fire with a blind boy on his 
knee, and the sightless mother nurses at her bosom a sightless babe, 
that never gladdened her with its happy smile. How would such a 
spectacle touch the most callous feelings, and move to pity even a heart 
of stone ! But a greater calamity is ours. The eyes of our understand- 
ing are darkened. 

5. Naturally Amiable Persons. 

(344.) Away among the rough moors, by the banks of tumbling river r 
or the skirts of green wood, or on sloping acclivity, or steep hill-side, we 
have gathered, remote from gardens and the care of men, bunches of 
wild flowers, which, although very perishing, were exquisitely beautiful, 
and steeped in fragrant odors ; and such as these are some men and 
women, who have never yet been transplanted from a state of nature 
into a state of grace. There is no sin in loving them. In the young 
ruler who declined to take up his cross and follow Christ, was not there 
so much that was amiable, gentle, lovely, that Jesus' own heart was 
drawn to him ? It is said that he " loved him ;" and the emotions of 
a Saviour's bosom cannot be wrong in mine. 



PARDON. 

1. None Excepted from Pardon. 

(345.) From the pardon of redeeming mercy there are none excepted, 
unless those who, by refusing to accept it, except themselves. Are you 
unjust ? Christ Jesus died, the just for the unjust. Are you sinners ? 
He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Are you 
the vilest of the vile ? He never lifted his foot, when he was on this 
earth, to spurn the guiltiest away. He pitied whom others spurned ; 
he received whom others rejected ; he loved whom others loathed. Let 
the vilest, meanest, most wretched outcasts know that they have a friend 



PARDON. 127 

in him. A mother's door may be shut against them, but not his. It 
was his glory then, and it is his glory still, to be reproached as the friend 
of sinners. He faced contumely to save them ; he endured death to 
save them. And be you groaning under a load of cares or guilt, of sins 
or sorrows, kind and gracious Lord ! he says, Come unto me all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

2. The Price of Pardon. 

(346.) Should a mote of dust get into the natural eye, the irritation 
induced will weep out the evil ; and so, in a way, with sin in a tender 
and holy conscience. But tears — an ocean of tears — wash not out the 
guilt of sin. All tears are lost that fall not at the feet of Jesus. But 
even the tears which bathe a Saviour's feet wash not away our sins. 
When falling — flowing fast, we are to remember that it is not the tears 
we shed, but the blood he shed, which is the price of pardon ; and that 
guilty souls are nowhere to be cleansed but in that bath of blood where 
the foulest are free to wash and certain to be cleansed. 



3. The Peace which Springs from Pardon. 

(347.) Peace ! Yes, there shall be peace — " Being justified by faith, 
we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ ; ' ' and the 
secret of our peace shall lie in that which held up the head of a royal 
favorite, while undergoing trial before his country for a very heinous 
crime. Men wondered at his strange serenity, and how he could bear 
himself so calmly. He passed on to the bar without a cloud upon his 
brow, or an expression of anxiety in his eye, as he looked around him 
on judges, accusers, the crowd of anxious spectators. The trial began. 
His case grew darker and darker — not so his aspect. Witness after 
witness bore crushing evidence against him, yet the keen eyes of his 
enemies could detect no quiver on his lip, or shade upon his brow. 
Long after hope had expired in the breast of anxious friends, and they 
looked on him as a doomed man, there he was, looking round serenely 
on that terrible array. His pulse beat calm, nor started suddenly, but 
went on with a stately march ; while peace sat enthroned upon his 
placid brow. When at length, amid the silence of the hushed assembly, 
the verdict of " Guilty " is pronounced, he rises. Erect in attitude, in 
demeanor calm, he stands up, not to receive the sentence — which was 
already trembling on the judge's lip — but to reveal the secret of this 
strange peace and self-possession. He thrusts his hand into his bosom, 
and lays on the table his pardon — a full, free pardon for his crimes, 
sealed with the royal signet. 



128 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 



PATIENCE OF GOD. 

1. God's Patience not Everlasting. 

(348.) Swift fly the wings of mercy. Slow goes the hand of justice ; 
like the shadow on the sun-dial, ever moving, yet creeping slowly on, 
with a motion all but imperceptible. Still let sinners stand in awe. The 
hand of justice has not stopped, although imperceptibly, it steadily ad- 
vances ; by and by, having reached the tenth, eleventh, twelfth hour, the 
bell strikes. Then, unless you now flee to Christ, the blow which was 
so slow to fall shall descend on the head of impenitence with accumulated 
force. Let it never be forgotten, that although God's patience is last- 
ing, it is not everlasting. 



PEACE. 



1. Heavenly Peace. 

(349.) As I have seen a master, speaking with low and gentle voice, 
hush the riotous school into instant silence, so Jesus spake. Raising his 
hand, and addressing the rude storm, he said, " Peace, be still." The 
wind ceased, and there was a great calm. No sooner, amid the loudest 
din, does nature catch the well-known sound of her master's voice, than 
the tumult subsides ; in an instant all is quiet ; and, with a heave as 
gentle as an infant's bosom, and all heaven's starry glory mirrored in 
its crystal depths, the sea of Galilee lies around that boat — a beautiful 
picture of the happy bosom into which heaven and its peace have de- 
scended. 



PERSECUTION. 

1. Persecution Turned into Good. 

(350.) So, though intended for evil, the Lord has often turned oppo- 
sition into good. Indeed, in observing how little Christ's cause has 
sometimes suffered from its avowed enemies, and how often the very 
means they employed to hinder have helped it on, I have thought of the 
eagle, which rises slowly amid the calm of serene and sunny skies ; but, 
spreading its wings to the storm and turning even adverse winds to ad- 
vantage, soars aloft in tempests that strike other birds with dismay, 
■darken the face of heaven, and roar through the troubled air. God so 
makes the wrath of man to praise him, and restrains the remainder of 
wrath, that the almost uniform experience of his Church and people has 



PIETY. 129 

been that of Israel in the land of Egypt — " the more they were afflicted, 
the more they multiplied and grew." 

2. The Church Strengthened by Persecution. 

(351.) There are other things besides the sturdy oak which the roar- 
ing tempest nurses into strength. The storms that strip the tree of 
some leaves, perhaps of some rotten branches, but moor it deeper in the 
rifts of everlasting rock. Christ's words cannot fail, On this rock have 
I built my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 

3. By the Greek and Roman Churches. 

(352.) In the old land of Canaan, the places from which Jebusites, 
.and Hittites, and others, were expelled, came to be occupied, in part at 
least, by the Samaritan race. These, though holding a portion of his 
creed, hated the Jew ; and often opposed him with an animosity more 
bitter than rankled in heathen breasts. And how has that condition of 
things found a counterpart in the so-called Christian world ? A cor- 
responding mixture of truth and error characterizes the Greek ;;nd Roman 
Churches. Their animosity to the true faith has been seldom, if ever, 
exceeded by heathen rancor ; nor has Pagan Rome persecuted the 
truth more bitterly than Popish Rome has done. 



PIETY. 

1. The Most Healthy is that which is the Busiest. 

(353.) The strongest trees grow not beneath the glass of a greenhouse, 
•or in the protection of sheltered and shaded valleys. The stoutest 
timber stands on Norwegian rocks, where tempests rage, and long, hard 
winters reign. And is it not with the Christian as with the animal life 
also ? Exercise gives health, and strength is the reward of activity. 
The muscles are seen fully developed in the brawny arm that plies the 
ringing hammer. Health blooms ruddiest on the cheek, and strength 
is most powerfully developed in the limbs of him, who — not nailed to a 
sedentary occupation, nor breathing the close atmosphere of heated 
chambers — but fearless of cold, a stranger to downy pillows and luxu- 
rious repose, rises with the day, sees the early worm rise in the dank 
meadow, and hears the morning lark high overhead, and passing his 
hours in athletic exercises, increases his strength by spending it. Even 
-so, the most vigorous and healthy piety is that which is the busiest. 



130 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

2. Practical Piety. 
(354.) Some three years ago, when we had gone to open a church in 
the neighborhood of Balmoral, we were asked to visit a widow, who 
had been but a short while before bereaved of her husband — a plain, 
humble, but pious man, who had been an elder, or office-bearer, in the 
Free Church congregation there. Her home was a cottage within the 
Queen's grounds. In the Trianon at Versailles we had been in the apart- 
ment and had seen the very table where the First Napoleon sat ; with a. 
stroke of his pen making and unmaking kings, proclaiming peace or 
shaking Europe with the thunders of war. The room in that highland 
cottage where we found the good man's widow was far more interesting 
to us as the scene of a less usual, and, in its moral aspects, of a grander 
event. The one apartment seemed to smell of sulphur, the other of the 
perfume of heaven's golden censers. "Within these walls our Queen had 
stood, with kind hands smoothing the thorns of a dying man's pillow. 
There, left alone with him at her own request, she had sat by the bed of 
death — a queen ministering to the comforts of a saint, preparing one of 
her humblest subjects to meet that Monarch in whose dread and awful 
presence every earthly distinction vanishes. Happy the land that can 
show such a spectacle ! safe the throne that rests on the altars of religion 
and the affections of the people ! The scene, as our fancy pictured it, 
seems like the breaking of the day when old prophecies shall be fulfilled ; 
kings become nursing fathers and queens nursing mothers to the Church. 
Why should our gracious Sovereign be so commonly, universally, and 
justly held up to the country and the world as a pattern of all public, 
social, and domestic virtues, and her discharge of Christian duties be 
ignored or concealed ? It is not for the sake of adulation, but of imita- 
tion, that we mention what, in her visit to a peasant's dying bed, acci- 
dentally came to our knowledge — gleamed forth on our notice as a stream 
to the sunbeams, which usually pursues a hidden and silent way, nor 
reveals its presence but by the line of fresh verdure that marks its course. 
There the highest lady in the realm set an example which all classes would 
find it a pleasure and should esteem it an honor to imitate — a practical 
piety hers, amid the duties of which people would find themselves happier 
and safer than in pursuing those religious speculations which now engross- 
so much attention and withdraw our energies and our efforts from the 
weightier matters of the law. 



POOR, THE. 

1. Personally Helping the Poor. 
(355.) It is less the amount given than the way of giving it, that 
sweetens the cup of poverty and reconciles the pensioners of our bounty 



PBA YER. 131 

to their lot. There are delicate perfumes that owe their fragrance to 
elements so volatile and ethereal, that much of their virtue is lost when 
they are poured from one vessel to another. So it is with charity, the 
pleasure it yields, and the gratitude it awakens. Those kind looks and 
tones which bespeak the feelings of the heart, you cannot transmit with 
the goods or gold, the meat or messages, which you send through the 
medium of servants or societies, or any second party whatever. As far 
as possible, therefore, every one should be the almoner of his own 
charities, and carry the sunbeams of his presence into the homes of the 
poor. 



POPERY. 

1. A Formidable Power. 

(356.) How formidable is that power which compels a man to sacri- 
fice his reason at the feet of priestcraft ; and woman, shrinking, modest, 
delicate woman, to allow some foul hand to search her bosom, and to 
drag its secrets from their close concealment. Best gift of heaven:-! 
God sends them his blessed word, and they dare not open it. Those 
senses of smell, and touch, and taste, which are the voice of God, de- 
clare that the cup is filled with wine, and the wafer made of wheat ; 
but, as if their sense as well as their souls were darkened, they believe 
that to be a living man's blood, and this to be a living man's flesh ! 
" Having eyes, they see not." And, greatest triumph of darkness ! 
they hug their chains ; refuse instruction ; stop their ears, like the deaf 
adder which will not hear the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so 
wisely ; and turn away their eyes from the truth, as the owls that haunt 
some old monastic ruin from the glare of a torch, or the blaze of day. 



PRAYER. 

1. Two Limits to Prayer. 

(357.) Prayer changes impotence into omnipotence ; for, command- 
ing the resources of Divinity, there is nothing it cannot do, and there 
is nothing it need want. It has just two limits. The first is, that its 
range is confined to the promises ; but, within these, what a bank of 
wealth, what a mine of mercies, what a store of blessings ! The second 
is, that God will grant or deny our requests as is best for his glory and 
our good. And who that knows how we are, in a sense, but children, 
would wish it otherwise ? 



I'M GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

2. God's Answer Anticipating His People's Prayer. 

(358.) Let the disciple be sinking amid the waves of Galilee, crying, 
" I perish" — let the prophet be on his knees in the depths of the sea 
and the dark belly of the whale — let the widow's last mite, and the 
barrel's last handful have come — let the confessor be descending into 
the lions' roaring den — let the queen have her brave hand upon the door, 
with these words of high resolve upon her lips, " If I perish, I perish" 
— let the trembling host have the waters of the Red Sea roaring in their 
front, and the chariots of Egypt pressing on their rear — let God's peo- 
ple have reached such a crisis — let them stand in any such predicament 
— and his answer anticipates their prayer. 

3. No Crying in Vain. 

(359.) Unable to save yourselves, it is yours to besiege with prayers 
the throne of grace. Learn from Simon Peter what to do, and where 
to turn ; not Peter sleeping in the garden, but Peter sinking in the sea. 
One who in his boyhood had learned to breast the billow, and feel at 
home upon the deep, he makes no attempt to swim ; the shore lies 
beyond his reach, nor can the boldest swimmer live amid these swelling 
waters. His companions cannot save him ; their boat, unmanageable, 
drifts before the gale, and they cannot save themselves. He turns his 
back on them. He directs nor look nor cry to them, but fixing his eyes 
on that divine form which, calm, unmoved, master of the tempests, 
steps majestically on from billow to billow, the drowning man throws out 
his arms to Jesus, and cries, " Lord, save me !" Did he cry in vain ? 
No more shall you. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was 
lost ; nor did he ever say unto one of the sons of men, Seek ye, me in 
vain. 

4. Prayer without Wishes. 

(360.) Prayers without wishes are like birds without wings ; while 
the eagle soars away to heaven, these never leave the ground. It is the 
heart that prays — not the knees, nor the hands, nor the lips. Have not 
I seen a dumb man, who stood with his back to the wall, beg as well 
with his imploring eye and open hand, as one that had a tongue to 
speak ? If you would have your prayers accepted, they must be arrows 
shot from the heart. None else mount to the throne of God. You 
may repeat your prayers every day ; you may be punctual as a Moham- 
medan who, at the Mollah's call from the minaret of the mosque, drops 
on his knees in public assembly or the crowded street. "What then ? 
The prayers of the lip, tongue, memory, of the wandering mind in its 
dead formality, are, in the sight of God, no better than the venal prayers 
of Rome, or the revolutions of the Tartar's wheel. 



PRAYER. 133 

5. The Direct Power of Prayer. 

(361.) Its direct power is, in a sense, omnipotent. Prayer moves the 
hand that moves the world. It secures for the believer the resources of 
Divinity. What battles has it not fought ! what victories has it not 
won ! what burdens has it not carried ! what wounds has it not healed ! 
what griefs has it not assuaged ! It is the wealth of poverty ; the 
refuge of affliction ; the strength of weakness ; the light of darkness. 
It is the oratory that gives power to the pulpit ; it is the hand that 
strikes down Satan, and breaks the fetters of sin ; it turns the scales of 
fate more than the edge of the sword, the craft of statesmen, or the 
weight of sceptres ; it has arrested the wing of time, turned aside the 
very scythe of death, and discharged heaven's frowning and darkest 
cloud in a shower of blessings. 

6. Easy for God to Supply Our Greatest Wants. 

(362.) Is it not as easy for yonder great sea to carry the bulkiest ship 
that ever rode her waves, as the sea-weed or foam she flings upon the 
shore ? Is it not as easy for that glorious sun to bathe a mountain, as 
to bathe a mole-hill in gold ? Is it not as easy for this mighty earth to 
carry on its back an Alp as a grain of sand — to nourish a cedar of Leba- 
non, as the hyssop on the wall ? Just so, believer, it is as easy for God 
to supply thy greatest as thy smallest wants ; even as it was as much 
within his power to form a system as an atom — to create a blazing sun, 
as kindle a fire-fly's lamp. 

V. God's Answers to Prayer Correspond to Our Wants. 

(363.) My little child is angry when I pluck a knife from his hands ; 
he doubts his father's love because he does not always kiss, but some- 
times corrects him ; and, turning away his head from the nauseous drug, 
he must be coaxed — sometimes compelled to drink the cup which, 
although bitter to the taste, is the restorative of health. Who that sees 
the child seek meat when he needs medicine, eagerly clutch at tempting 
but unripe fruit, prefer play, and go weeping to school, reject simple 
but healthful fare for some luscious, but noxious luxury — who, I say, 
does not feel thankful that God reserves the right of refusal, and makes 
his answers correspond to our wants rather than to our wishes ? 

8. A Resource that Never Fails. 

(364.) Is a resource that never fails. There is no evil from which 
it does not offer escape ; no sin of which it may not, through the ap- 
plication of Christ's blood, procure the pardon ; nor any temptation 



134 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

over which, calling in the aids of the Holy Spirit, it may not achieve a 
victory. There is no burden too heavy for the back of prayer to carry, 
nor wound too deep for its balm to heal. It provides comfort in all the 
sorrows, relief amid all the troubles, and a cure for all the ills of life. 

9. Straitened in Ourselves. 

(365.) Ye are not straitened in me, says God, but in yourselves. Try 
me herewith, he says — ask, seek, knock ! Who does will find that it 
is only a faint image of the plenitude of grace we behold in that palace- 
scene where the king, looking kindly on a lovely suppliant, bends from 
his throne to extend his golden sceptre, and say, What is thy petition, 
and what is thy request, Queen Esther, and it shall be given thee to the 
half of my kingdom ? 

10. The Gates of Prayer not Shut. 

(366.) The sweat standing on his brow, and the blood of the heathen 
dripping from his sword, Gideon, as he pressed on the flying foe, sought 
bread at the gate of Succoth. His request was refused ; and, the more 
honor to him and his followers, though refused and faint, they resumed 
the pursuit. But did any ever ask strength of God for well-doing, for 
his work, or watch, or warfare, and find the gates of prayer, like those 
of Succoth, shut in his face ? No. He giveth power to the faint, and 
to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths 
shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail ; but they 
that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount up 
with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not be weary ; they shall walk 
and not faint. 

11. The Test of Prayer. 

(367.) An angel, says our great poet, keeping ward and watch on the 
battlements of heaven, caught sight of Satan as he flew on broad wing 
from hell to this world of ours. The celestial sentinel shot down like a 
sunbeam to the earth, and communicated the alarm to the guard at the 
gate of paradise. Search was made for the enemy, but for a time with- 
out success. Ithuriel entered the bower, whose flowery roof " showered 
roses which the morn repaired," and where our first parents, " lulled by 
nightingales, embracing, slept." There he saw a toad sitting, squat by 
the ear of Eve. His suspicions were awakened. In his hand was a 
spear that had the celestial power of revealing truth, unmasking false- 
hood, and making all things to stand out in their genuine colors. He 
touched the reptile with it. That instant the toad — which was breath- 
ing horrid dreams into the ear of Eve— changed its shape, and there, 
confronting him face to face, stood the proud, malignant, haughty form 



PEA TER. 135 

of the Prince of Darkness. With such a spear as that with which Mil- 
ton, in this flight of fancy, arms Ithuriel, prayer arms us. Are we in 
doubt whether a thing is right or wrong ? Examine the matter on your 
knees. Can you make it the subject of prayer ? Ah ! be sure you are 
not safe in the place or in the act in which you cannot ask God to be 
with you. 

12. Every Prayer Falls Distinctly On Jesus' 1 Ear. 

(368.) It is told as an extraordinary thing of the first and greatest of 
.all the Caesars, that such were his capacious mind, his mighty faculties, 
and his marvellous command of them, that he could at once keep six 
pens running to his dictation on as many different subjects. That may 
or may not be true ; but were Jesus Christ a mere man, in the name 
even of reason, how could he guard the interests, and manage the affairs 
of a people, scattered far and wide over the face of the habitable globe ? 
What heart were large enough to embrace them all ? what eyes could see 
them all ; what ears could hear them all ? Think of the ten thousand 
prayers pronounced in a hundred different tongues that go up at once, 
and altogether, to his ear ! Yet there is no confusion ; none are lost ; 
none missed in the crowd. Nor are they heard by him as, standing on 
yonder lofty crag, we hear the din of the city that lies stretched out far 
beneath us, with all its separate sounds of cries, and rumbling wheels, 
and human voices, mixed up into one deep, confused, hollow roar — like 
the boom of the sea's distant breakers. No ; every believer may feel as 
if he were alone with God — enjoying a private audience of the king in 
his presence-chamber. Be of good cheer. Every groan of thy wound- 
ed heart, thy every sigh, and cry, and prayer, falls as distinctly on 
Jesus' ear as if you stood beside the throne, or, nearer still, lay with 
John in his bosom, and felt the beating of his heart against your own. 

13. A Neglect of Prayer is Dangerous. 

(369.) How can he escape wounds who rushes into battle without 
taking time to put his armor on ? To win the fight, a man must gird 
on his weapons ; to draw sweet music from an instrument, he must tune 
its strings ; nor can a laborer endure the tear and wear of work, if he 
neglects his food, unless he supplies the waste of bone and muscle with 
nutritious meals. The soul, not less than the body, wants its necessary 
food. 

(370.) A most important truth ! To overlook it— but that the cove- 
nant of grace is well-ordered in all things and sure — would involve us in 
a fate worse than his who some winters ago owed his death to neglecting 
the means necessary for the support of life. The fatal morning broke 



136 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

dimly on hills all white with snow, and a sky along which the tempest 
hurled thick blinding drift. Alarmed for his flock, the shepherd 
dressed in haste ; and, deaf to the entreaties of a prudent wife who im- 
plored him to eat and strengthen nature for the coming struggle, he 
pulled his bonnet on his brow, and went out into the storm. It was- 
bravely but rashly done. He never came back. Denied her necessary 
support, nature speedily sank under his violent exertions ; and he perished 
— the sleep he sought on the snow-bank where they found his stiffened 
corpse, deepening into the torpor of death, the sleep that knows no 
waking. And if not their death — for they that are in Christ shall not 
finally perish — to what do saints often owe their falls and failings, but to 
their neglect of prayer, and of God's word, and of other divinely ap- 
pointed means of grace ? 

14. A Man of Prayer is a Man of Power. 

(371.) What fed the faith wherein his great strength lay ? Challeng- 
ing comparison with any, and excelling all, in that grace, we may justly 
apply to him the glowing terms and bold figures of the prophet — " He 
was a cedar in Lebanon, with high stature and fair branches, and shad- 
owing shroud — the cedars of God could not hide him — the fir-trees were 
not like his boughs, and the chestnut-trees were not like his branches, 
nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto him for beauty — his 
root," he adds, explaining how this cedar towered above the loftiest 
trees, giant monarch of the forest, ' ' his root was by the great waters. ' * 
And what that root found in streams which, fed by the snows and seaming 
the sides of Lebanon, hottest summers never dried and coldest winters 
never froze, the unequalled faith of Abraham found in close and constant 
communion with God. Like Enoch, he walked with God. Each im- 
portant transaction of life was entered on in a pious spirit, and hallowed 
by religious exercises. His tent was a moving temple. His household 
was a pilgrim church. Wherever he rested, whether by the venerable oak 
of Mamre, or on the olive slopes of Hebron, or on the lofty, forest- 
crowned ridge of Bethel, an altar rose ; and his prayers went up with its 
smoke to heaven. Such daily, intimate, and loving communion did this 
grand saint maintain with heaven, that God calls him "his friend ;" 
and honoring his faith with a higher than an earthly title, the church 
has crowned him " Father of the Faithful. " He lived on terms of fel- 
lowship with God such as had not been seen since the days of Eden. 
Voices addressed him from the skies ; angels paid visits to his tent ; 
and visions of celestial glory hallowed his lowly couch and mingled with 
his nightly dreams. He was a man of prayer, and therefore he was a 
man of power. Setting us an example that we should follow his steps, 
thus, to revert to language borrowed from the stateliest of Lebanon's 



PREACHERS AND PREACHING. 137 

cedar, thus was he " fair in his greatness and in the length of his. 
branches, for his root was by the great waters. ' ' 



PREACHERS AND PREACHING. 

1. The Charms of Jesus' 1 Preaching. 

(372.) Orpheus is said to have drawn savage beasts around him by 
the charms of music ; but our Lord so charmed the world by his 
preaching, that he drew to him, in publicans and sinners, multitudes 
more brutal than the beasts. Finding in him a Jew who did not hate 
but love them, despise but pity them, trample them beneath his feet but 
stooped to raise them, as if each were a diamond sparkling in the mud, 
they gathered in crowds to hear him, and listen to one who offered 
mercy, and held out the flag of hope even to publicans and sinners. 

2. The Preacher Feeling what He Says. 

(373.) An obscure man rose up to address the French Convention. 
At the close of his oration, Mirabeau, the giant genius of the Revolu- 
tion, turned round to his neighbor, and eagerly asked, Who is that ? 
The other, who had been in no way interested by the address, wondered 
at Mirabeau's curiosity. Whereupon the latter said, That man will yet 
act a great part ; and, asked to explain himself, added, he speaks as one 
who believes every word he says. Much of pulpit power under God de- 
pends on that — admits of that explanation, or one allied to it. They 
make others feel who feel themselves. 

3. The Fittest Preacher. 

(374.) We have somewhere read of a traveller who stood one day be- 
side the cages of some birds, that, exposed for sale, ruffled their sunny 
plumage on the wires, and struggled to be free. A way-worn and sun- 
browned man, like one returned from foreign lands, he looked wistfully 
and sadly on these captives, till tears started in his eye, and turning 
round on their owner, he asked the price of one, paid it in strange 
gold, and opening the cage set the prisoner free ; and thus and thus he 
did with captive after captive, till every bird was away, soaring to the 
skies and singing on the wings of liberty. The crowd stared and stood 
amazed ; they thought him mad, till to the question of their curiosity 
he replied — " I was once myself a captive ; I know the sweets of lib- 
erty." And so they who have experience of guilt, have felt the ser- 
pent's bite, the burning poison in their veins, who on the one hand 
have felt the sting of conscience, and on the other the peace of faith, the 



138 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

joys of hope, the love, the light, the liberty, the life, that are found in 
Jesus — they, not excepting heaven's highest angels, are the fittest to 
preach a Saviour, to plead with man for God, or plead with God for 
man. 

4. Illustrative Style of Preaching. 

(375.) The suitableness of this style of preaching a gospel, intended 
as well for the unlearned as the learned, for converting the unlettered 
poor, whose souls are as precious in God's sight as those of philosophers 
or kings, is obvious ; and was well expressed by an humble woman. 
Comprehending best, and most interested and edified by those passages 
of Scripture which present abstract truth under concrete forms, and of 
which we have examples in such comparisons of our Lord's as these — 
the kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, unto a 
treasure, unto a merchant, unto a householder, unto a king, she said, 
*' I like best the likes of Scripture." 

5. Tenderness of Jesus 1 Preaching. 

(376.) No doubt it was the pleasure Jesus felt in the good news he 
preached which so glowed in his countenance, and lent such tender- 
ness, and power, and pathos to his oratory, that a woman who heard 
him cried, Blessed is the womb that bare thee — and his very enemies 
confessed, Never man spake like that man. Would that all his servants 
caught his spirit, and came to the pulpit wearing his mantle ! 

6. Gratifying the Imagination. 

(377.) By awakening and gratifying the imagination, the truth finds 
its way more readily to the heart, and makes a deeper impression on the 
memory. The story, like a float, keeps it from sinking ; like a nail, 
fastens it in the mind ; like the feathers of an arrow makes it strike, 
and like the barb makes it stick. 

7. The Life of Preaching. 

(378.) I am convinced that among the rocks which beat back the 
roaring sea — up in the crags where dews, and rain, and bright sunbeams 
fall — down in earth's darkest and deepest mines, there lies bedded no 
■stone colder, harder, less impressible, more impenetrable, than an un- 
renewed heart. Does unbelief suggest the question, Why, then, preach 
to the unconverted ? as well preach to stones ? as well knock with thy 
hand upon a door which is locked on a coffin and a corpse ? In a sense, 
true ; and altogether true, but for 'the promise — " Lo I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." That promise is the soul of 
hope and the life of preaching. 



PREACHERS AND PREACHING. 139 

8. Unjust Representations of God by Some Preachers. 

(379.) The representations of God the Father in the most splendid 
paintings of the ancient masters are worse than in bad taste. His Son 
assumed the human form ; and far short as the highest art comes of ex- 
pressing the love and mildness and majesty that beamed in the face of 
Jesus, we are not offended by its efforts. Though they may not satisfy 
they do not shock us. But to set forth the invisible God, in the char- 
acter of the ' ' Ancient of Days' ' as an old man, or even in the noblest 
aspects of humanity, is an irreverence — offensive and revolting. Yet 
there have been representations of our heavenly Father more revolting. 
He has suffered less injustice from painters than from preachers. Thun- 
dering out the terrors of the law, armed with bolts of vengeance, and 
scowling down from pulpits, they have stood there as unlike as possible 
to Him who wept over Jerusalem, and when he saw the multitudes had 
compassion on them. By representing God in dark and gloomy colors, 
with an expression on his countenance of stern severity, and as more 
prone to punish than to pardon, the preacher' s offence is greater than 
the painter's. He may quench a sinner's hopes, extinguish the light 
that is dawning on a darkened soul, and repel a poor prodigal whose 
steps are turning homeward to his father' s house. 



9. Thinking Too Much of the Preacher. 

(380.) Let any object whatever interpose between me and the sun, 
■and a shadow, more or less cold and dark, is the immediate consequence ; 
as happens when the moon, forgetting that her business is to reflect the 
sunbeams, not to arrest them, rolls in between our world and him, to 
turn day into night, and to shroud us in the gloom of an eclipse. Even 
so the deep shadow of a spiritual darkness may be flung over a congre- 
gation, who, allowing the pulpit to come in between them and the cross, 
think too much of the servant and too little of the Master. 



10. The Pulpit Offers a Man a Grander Position than a Throne. 

(381.) Viewed in the light of eternity, the church stands on a loftier 
-elevation than the palace, and the pulpit offers man a grander position 
than the throne of empires. To ministers of the Gospel belongs the high 
pre-eminence of being able to say, " We are fellow-laborers with God ;" 
and, with such an associate — in such lofty company, devoting his life to 
such a cause — no wonder that Paul confronted a skeptic, sneering, 
scoffing world, and bravely said, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of 
Christ." 



140 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

11. What Comes from the Heart Goes to the Heart. 

(382.) It is true that a man may impart light to others who does not 
himself see the light. It is true that, like a concave speculum cut from 
a block of ice, which, concentrating the rays of the sun, kindles touch- 
wood or gunpowder, a preacher may kindle fire iu others, when his own 
heart is cold as frost. It is also true that he may stand like a finger-post 
on a road, where he neither leads nor follows ; and God may thus in his 
sovereign mercy bless others by one who is himself unblessed. Yet com- 
monly it happens that it is what comes from the heart of the preachers 
that reaches the heart of heart of hearers. 

12. Gentleness of the Apostles. 

(383.) Just as it is not with stubborn but pliant iron that locks are 
picked, the hearts of sinners are to be opened only by those who bring 
a Christ-like gentleness to the work ; and who are ready, with Paul's 
large, loving, kind, and generous disposition, to be all things to all men, 
if so be that they may win some. Never had the disciples gone forth 
" conquering and to conquer," had they brought their old bigoted, 
quarrelsome, unsanctified temper to the mission. They might have died 
for Christianity, but she had died with them ; and, bound to their 
stake, and expiring in their ashes, she had been entombed in the sepul- 
chre of her first and last apostles. 



PROMISES. 

1. Surpassing Value of the Promises. 

(384.) The condition of believers very much resembles that of a man 
of boundless affluence, whose wealth lies, not so much in money, as in 
money's worth — in bills and bonds, that, when due, shall be duly hon- 
ored. With these promises the poorest Christian is really a richer man 
than any other men, with all their possessions ; nor would he part with 
one of them for the world's wealth. This rude and naked savage — the 
dupe of avaricious men — barters a coronet of gold for some worthless 
trinkets, and buys the wonders of a mirror, the tinkling of a bell, or a 
string of colored beads, with a handful of pearls, the fit ornaments of a 
crown. The child of God knows better than to sell what is of surpass- 
ing value, for anything intrinsically worthless. With this promise, 
" thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure," he holds 
himself richer, more sure of meat to eat, and raiment to put on, than he 
■would be with the wealth of banks. 



PRIDE. 141 

PRIDE. 

1. Spiritual Pride. 

(385.) Naturalists say that it is much more difficult to get a mountain 
plant to accommodate itself to a low locality, than to get one, which by 
birth belongs to the valleys, to live and thrive at a lofty elevation. So, 
there seems nothing more difficult to men than to descend gracefully, 
and for those who have been accustomed to a high position in society to 
reconcile themselves to a humble one. And thus I have seen such an 
one as I have described, when he had lost his wealth, retain in his vanity 
what he should first have parted with, and continue proud even when he 
had become poor. So is it with us in our low and lost estate. Spirit- 
ually poor, we are spiritually proud — saying, " I am rich and increased 
in goods, and have need of nothing, " while we are " wretched, and 
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. ' ' 

2. Pride Shuts out God. 

(386.) A soul filled with self has no room for God ; and, like the inn 
of Bethlehem, given to lodge meaner guests, a heart full of pride has no 
chamber, within which Christ may be born " in us the hope of glory." 

3. Pride in Dress. 

(387.) To them who believe, Christ is precious ; but what can be 
more sad than to see the value a woman sets on trinkets, the pride with 
which she shows and wears her jewels, while Jesus has no preciousness 
in her eyes ? What fools people are ! They set more on some glitter- 
ing bits of glass or stone than on a crown of glory ! — they care more in 
this dying body for the perishable casket than for the immortal jewel 
which it holds ! 

4. A Dreadful Sin. 

(388.) Obtaining access to hearts which would close the door in the 
face of grosser vices, pride, besides, is a very dreadful and deadly sin. 
Has it not proved itself so ? It cost Nebuchadnezzar his reason ; in his 
successors it cost Hezekiah his kingdom ; on Galilee it nearly cost 
Simon Peter his life ; taking root in the hearts of our first parents, it 
cost them and mankind Eden ; springing up in angels' bosoms, it cost 
them heaven. 

5. Prevalence of Pride. 

(389.) Plants grow only in certain soils, or at certain heights, or 
under certain lines of latitude. TJnlike these, pride is a weed that, spring- 



142 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

ing up in every heart, grows at all elevations — as well in the humblest as 
in the highest stations of life ; and under every system of religion, the 
true as well as the false. 

6. Peter's Pride. 

(390.) So strong was Simon in his own vain judgment that in place of 
waiting till Christ invited him to walk on the water, he volunteered to 
make the bold attempt. Addressing his Master as, stepping with God- 
like majesty from billow to billow, he approached their boat, Peter said, 
" Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water." To drown 
not him but his vanity, and mortify the conceit and presumption which 
was his besetting sin, our Lord - acceded to Peter's request, saying, 
Come. The permission is no sooner granted than, probably without a 
prayer for Divine help, and certainly with more rashness than genuine 
courage, he leaps from the boat. The water bears him up : he walks 
the rolling billows — yet, ere he rejoins his companions, how effectually 
is he taught that when a man is strong, then he is weak ! He began to 
build without counting the cost ; and the only result is a house which, 
unfinished and unfurnished, remains the inglorious monument of his 
pride and poverty. 



PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 

1 . The Language of the Seers of the Old Testament. 

(391.) That will, like ours, works through the instrumentality of 
means ; and " it is curious," says the Duke of Argyll, in a profound 
and subtle book which he has published, called " The Reign of Law," 
"how the language of the grand seers of the Old Testament corresponds 
with this idea. They uniformly ascribe all the operations of nature — 
the greatest and the smallest — to the working of divine power. But 
they never revolt — as so many do in these weaker days — from the idea 
of this power working by wisdom and knowledge in the use of means : 
nor in this point of view do they ever separate between the work of 
creation and the work which is going on daily in the existing world. 
Exactly the same language is applied to the rarest exertions of power 
and to the gentlest and most constant of all natural operations. Thus 
the saying that ' the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth ; by 
understanding hath he established the heavens, ' is coupled in the same 
breath with this other saying : ' By his knowledge the depths are 
broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.' " The Bible furnishes 
many other illustrations of this important remark of our noble author, 
one of which may be quoted for the beauty of its poetry, and for its 



PUNISHMENT. 143 

correct and scientific theory of rain: " Seek him," says the prophet 
Amos, " that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the 
shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with 
night ; that calleth the waters of the sea, and poureth them out on the 
face of the earth : the Lord is his name." 

2. Lying Calmly in the Arms of Providence. 

(392.) Yet why should we not lie as calmly in the arms of God's 
providence as we lay in infancy on a mother's breast ? Having an 
ever-living, an everlasting, and ever-loving father in God, how may we 
welcome all providences ; and, drawing some good from every evil, as 
the bee extracts honey even from poisoned flowers, how may we say, 
" Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory !" 



PUNISHMENT. 

1. God is Slow to Punish. 

(393.) " He executeth not judgment speedily against the workers of 
iniquity." He does punish ; he shall punish ; with reverence be it 
spoken, he must punish. Yet no hand of clock goes so slow as God's 
hand of vengeance. Of that, the world, this city, and this church, are 
witnesses ; each and all, speaker and hearer, are living witnesses. It is 
too common to overlook this fact ; and, overlooking the kindness, long- 
suffering, and warnings which precede the punishment, we are too apt 
to give the punishment itself our exclusive attention. 

2. Conscience Approves the Punishment. 

(394.) Endless misery — the worm that never dieth, and the fire that is 
never quenched — in whatever shape it comes, is an awful thought. We 
cannot think of it without shuddering. Oh, why should any hear of it 
without fleeing instantly to Jesus ; for who. among us shall dwell with 
the devouring fire ? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burning ? 
I do not undertake to defend God's procedure in this matter. He will 
defend it himself, and one day justify his ways, in the judgment even 
of those whom he condemns. They shall not have the miserable con- 
solation of complaining that they have been hardly and unjustly dealt 
with. The sentence that condemns them shall find an awful echo in 



144 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

their own consciences. How they shall blame themselves, and regret 
their life, and curse their folly — turning their stings against their own 
bosoms, as the scorpion, maddened with pain, is said to do, when sur- 
rounded by a circle of fire ! 



3. Love Demands the Punishment of the Impenitent. 

(395.) Divine Love, however, is no blind divinity ; and that love 
being as wise as tender, sinners may rest assured, that out of mere pity 
to them, God will neither sacrifice the interests, nor peril the happiness 
of his people. Love herself — bleeding, dying, redeeming love — with 
her own hand will bar the door of heaven, and from its happy, holy 
precincts, exclude all that could hurt or defile. Stern words these ! and 
when Love puts on her armor, to fight against him, what hope for the 
man who has compelled her to be his enemy ? Having armed Love 
against you, where now are you flying ? Look at this scene of judg- 
ment. He who died on the cross occupies the throne. Love incarnate 
presides at that august tribunal. The print of the nail is on the very 
hand which waves away the lost into perdition. The voice which so 
often invited the impenitent is that which now condemns and commands 
them to depart. 

4. God's Unwillingness to Punish Seen in the Case of the Antediluvians. 

(396.) Long before God had been calling an impenitent world to 
repentance. Had they no warning in Noah's preaching ? Was there 
nothing to alarm them in the very sight of the ark as story rose upon 
story ; and nothing in the sound of those ceaseless hammers to waken 
all but the dead ? It was not till Mercy's arm grew weary ringing the 
warning bell, that, to use the words of my text, God " poured out his 
fury" on them. I appeal to the story of this awful judgment. True, 
for forty days it rained incessantly, and for one hundred and fifty days 
more " the waters prevailed on the earth ;" but while the period of 
God's justice is reckoned by days, the period of his long-suffering was 
drawn out into years ; and there was a truce of one hundred and twenty 
years between the first stroke of the bell and the first crash of the thunder. 
Noah grew gray preaching repentance. The ark stood useless for years, 
a. huge laughing-stock for the scoffer's wit ; it stood till it was covered 
with the marks of age, and its builders with the contempt of the world ; 
and many a sneer had these men to bear, as, pointing to the serene 
heavens above and an empty ark below, the question was put, " Where 
is the promise of his coming?" Most patient God ! Then, as now, 
thou wert slow to punish — " waiting to be gracious." 



REDEMPTION. 145 



REDEEMED, THE. 



1. The Honor and Glory of the Redeemed. 

(397.) In taking our nature into union with his own, God conferred 
the rarest and highest honor on humanity, so, since he redeemed men 
with the blood of his Son, the highest angels do not wear crowns so 
bright as the thief on the cross and the woman that was a sinner. As 
in the families of men the youngest child is seated by day next to its 
father, and lies closest by night to its mother's breast ; as in the mate- 
rial heaven it is not the largest but the smallest planets that revolve in 
orbits nearest to the sun ; so in consequence of redeeming love, though 
in his original position inferior to the angels, man occupies in the family 
of God, and in those heavens of which the visible are but the starry 
pavement, a place nearest to the throne. And by the law that to whom 
much is given, of them shall much be required, those whom God has 
most loved are most bound to love, those whom he has most glorified 
are most bound to glorify him. 

2. The Great Company of the Redeemed. 

(398.) " He cometh, he cometh to judge the earth ;" and how ? after 
-what manner ? in what royal state ? " Behold he cometh with clouds" 
— clouds, that on their nearer approach to earth, when the general mass 
shall resolve itself into individual objects, may be found to consist of in- 
numerable hosts of winged and shining angels. On that great occasion, 
the saints — countless as the atoms that float in the vapors of the sky, or 
the drops that fall in its showers — shall also form, to use Paul's expres- 
sion, " a cloud of witnesses." Already they form a cloud in heaven ; 
and to the eye of faith it is as those nebulous spots, which, by their 
great distance, shine only with a faint luminosity far away in the depths 
of the starry firmament, but which, under the eye and instruments of 
the astronomer, are resolved into a countless aggregate of burning suns. 



REDEMPTION. 

1. The Design of Infinite Wisdom. 

(399.) In that ladder whereby faith climbs her way aloft to heaven, 
there is not a round that we can call our own. In this ark which, with 
open door, offers an asylum in the coming storm, a refuge in the rising 
flood — from stem to stern and keel to deck there is neither nail, nor 
plank, nor beam, that we can claim as ours. The plan of redemption 
was the design of infinite wisdom ; its execution was left to dying love ; 



146 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

and it is Mercy, generous Mercy, whose fair form stands in the open? 
door, bidding, entreating, beseeching you all to come in. 

2. The Spectacle which Redemption Offers. 

(400.) What man, what father, has not felt so on reading the story 
of the Roman judge ? Had that stern patriot condemned common 
criminals enough to make the scaffolds of justice and the gutters of 
Rome run red with blood, that wholesale slaughter had been a weak 
expression of his abhorrence of crime, compared with the death of this- 
solitary youth. When the culprit — his own child, the infant he had 
carried in his arms, his once sweet and beautiful boy, the child of his- 
tenderest affections, who had wound himself round a father's heart — 
rose and received the immolating sentence at a father's lips, oh ! that 
iron man offered the costliest sacrifice man ever made at the shrine of 
justice, and earned for Roman virtue a proverbial fame. But that i& 
nothing to the spectacle which redemption offers. 

3. Spans an Impassable Gulf. 

(401.) "Between us and you," said Abraham to the rich man,. 
" there is a great gulf fixed ; so that they which would pass from hence 
to you cannot ; neither can they pass to us that would come from 
thence." I know that a gulf as impassable and profound divides the 
state of sin from the state of grace ; and that no quantity nor quality of 
good works that we may attempt to throw in, can form a passage for 
our guilty feet. Rubbish at the best ! how are they lost in its unfath- 
omed depths ! lost like the stones which travellers in Iceland fling into 
those black, yawning, volcanic chasms, which descend so deep into the 
fiery bowels of that burning land, that no line can measure, and time 
never fills them. Yet, blessed be Christ's name ! the great gulf ha& 
been bridged. Redemption, through his blood and merits, spans the 
yawning chasm. An open way invites your feet. 

4. A Work without a Parallel. 

(402.) It is of all God's works the greatest ; it is his " strange" work. 
That cross on Calvary, which mercy raised for you, cost more love, and 
labor, and wisdom, and skill, than all yon starry universe. With the 
earth its emerald floor, its roof the sapphire firmament, the sun and stars 
its pendent lamps, its incense a thousand fragrant odors, its music of 
many sounds and instruments, the song of groves, the murmur of the 
streams, the voices of winged winds, the pealing thunder, and the ever- 
lasting roar of ocean, Nature's is a glorious temple ! Yet that is a 



REDEMPTION. 147 

nobler temple, which, with blood-redeemed saints for its living stones, 
and God and the Lamb for its uncreated lights, stands aloft on the Rock 
of Ages — the admiration of angels and the glory of the universe. 



5. The Story of Redeeming Love. 

(403.) The story of redeeming love surpasses anything related in the 
pages of the wildest romances. These tell of a prince, who, enamored 
of an humble maid, assumed a disguise ; and doffing his crown and royal 
state for the dress of common life, left his palace, travelled far, faced 
danger, and fared hard, to win the heart of a peasant's daughter, and 
raise her from obscurity to the position of a queen. Facts, as has been 
said, are more wonderful than fables. The journey which our divine 
lover took was from heaven to earth ; to win his bride, he exchanged 
the bosom of the eternal Father to lie, a feeble infant, on a woman's 
breast. Son of God, he left the throne of the universe, and assumed 
the guise of humanity, to be cradled in a manger and murdered on a 
cross. Besides, in his people he found a bride, deep in debt, and paid 
it all ; under sentence of death, and died in her room ; a lost creature, 
clad in rags, and he took off his own royal robes to cover her. To wash 
her, he shed his blood ; to win her, he shed his tears ; finding her poor 
and miserable and naked, he endowed her with all his goods ; heir of 
all things, everything that he possessed as his Father's Son, she was to 
enjoy and share with himself. 



6. The Motive of God in Redemption. 

(404.) The lofty subject of the motive of God in redemption resembles 
those binary stars which look to the naked eye as but one, but which, 
brought into the field of the telescope, resolve themselves into two orbs, 
rolling in their brightness and beauty around a common centre. Blessed 
be his holy name ! " He so loved the world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but 
should have everlasting life." " He commendeth his love to ns, in 
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. " Never, therefore, 
let us exalt this doctrine of the divine glory, at the expense of the 
divine love. God's love to sinners is his mightiest, his heart- softening 
argument ; and it were doing him, his gospel, and our own souls great 
injustice, if we should overlook the love that gives divinity its name, 
and which, sending in his Son a Saviour from the Father's bosom, was 
eulogized by an apostle as possessed of a " height, and depth, and 
breadth, and length, which passeth knowledge." 



148 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

REGENERATION. 

1. The Purest Need Regeneration. 

(405.) We believe that the purest, gentlest, loveliest, most amiable 
creature that blesses fond parents, and adorns earth's happiest home — 
one of nature's fairest flowers — stands as much in need of a new birth 
as the vilest outcast who walks these streets — the lost one, whose name 
is never mentioned but by broken hearts and in wrestling prayers to 
God. The best of mankind are so bad that all have need to be born 
again. 



RELIGION. 

1. The World's Great Want. 

(406.) The truth is, the world's great want is the want of religion. 
Perhaps men want more equal laws, more liberal institutions, and 
through their happy influence, better and more stable governments. 
The greatest want of nations is, however, that without which liberty 
has no solid pedestal to stand on — a genuine, mass-pervading piety. To 
drop all reference to foreign countries, I am sure that he who attempts 
to cure our own social maladies, independently of this best and most 
sanatory element, may be a philanthropist, but is not a philosopher. 
We had almost said he is a fool. He is an idle schemer, who would 
fain make bricks without straw, and heal the water of Jericho without 
the prophet's salt. His theories are as baseless and unsolid as if they 
conceived of man as a creature without a soul — of the solar system as 
without its central sun — of the universe without its God. 

2. True Religion Lies in the Heart. 

(407.) Religion does not lie in the denomination we belong to, in 
attendance on churches whose stony fingers point to heaven, in having a 
pew in the house of God, or even an altar in our own, in professions of 
piety, or even in works of benevolence. It lies in the heart. If it is 
not there, it is nowhere ; these other things being but the dress which 
may drape a statue, and give to a corpse the guise, or rather the mock- 
ery of life. In consequence of its being lodged in their hearts, true 
Christians, so far from being hypocrites, have more of the reality of 
religion than of its appearance. They are better than they seem to be ; 
and less resemble those fruits which, under a painted skin, and soft, 
luscious pulp, conceal a rough, hard stone, than those within whose 
shell and husky covering there are both milk and meat. 



RENEWAL. 149 

3. God Requires More than a Negative. 

(408.) God requires more than a negative religion. Piety, like fire, 
light, electricity, magnetism, is an active, not a passive element ; it has 
a positive, not merely a negative existence. For how is pure and unde- 
fined religion defined? "Pure religion and undefined is to visit the 
fatherless and widows in their affliction. ' ' And on whom does Jesus 
pronounce his beatitude ? " If ye know these things, happy are ye if 
ye do them." And what is the sum of practical piety — the most 
portable form in which yon can put an answer to Saul's question, 
" Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do !" What but this, " Depart 
from evil, and do good." * 



REMORSE. 

1. The Terrors of Remorse. 

(409.) The tale of the goblet, which the genius of a heathen fashioned, 
was true ; and taught a moral of which many a death-bed furnishes the 
melancholy illustration. Having made the model of a serpent, he fixed 
it in the bottom of the cup. Coiled for the spring, a pair of gleaming 
eyes in its head, and in its open mouth fangs raised to strike, it lay 
beneath the ruby wine. Nor did he who raised that golden cup to 
quench his thirst, and quaff the delicious draught, suspect what lay be- 
low, till as he reached the dregs, that dreadful head rose up and glis- 
tened before his eyes. So, when life's cup is nearly emptied, and sin's 
last pleasure quaffed, and unwilling lips are draining the bitter dregs, 
shall rise the ghastly terrors of remorse, and death, and judgment, upon 
the despairing soul. 



RENEWAL. 

1. Renewal, Not Repair. 

(410.) The bark grows on the peeled surface of an old elm or oak, so 
as in time to obliterate the letters that friendship or fond love has 
carved. From the lips of the gaping wound a liquid flesh is poured, 
which, receiving nerves and blood-vessels into its substance, solidifies, 
and at length fills up the breach. From its shattered surfaces, the 
broken limb discharges a fluid bone — a living cement — which, growing 
solid, restores the continuity of the shaft^ and gives the sufferer a leg 
or arm, strong as before. In some of the lower animals, indeed, this 
power of reparation is equal to the task, not only of repairing a broken, 



150 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

but of even restoring a lost member. With sucb renovating powers has 
God endowed certain creatures, that, if by accident or otherwise, the 
writhing worm, for example, is divided, the headless portion not only 
survives such a formidable lesion, but, strange to see ! produces and 
puts on a new head ; and offers us an example of animal life, which, 
besides being fortified against the most formidable injuries, is actually 
multiplied by division — " How marvellous are thy works, Lord God 
Almighty !" There are many striking and very interesting analogies 
between grace and nature. But there is no analogy between these 
cases and the case before us. 

2. Renewal Indispensable. 

(411.) Observe how this property of new runs through the whole 
economy of grace. When Mercy first rose upon this world, an attri- 
bute of Divinity appeared which was new to the eyes of men and angels. 
Again, the Saviour was born of a virgin ; and he who came forth from 
a womb where no child had been previously conceived, was sepulchred 
in a tomb where no man had been previously interred. The Infant had 
a new birth-place, the Crucified had a new burial-place. Again, Jesus 
is the mediator of a new covenant, the author of a new testament, the 
founder of a new faith. Again, the redeemed receive a new name ; 
they sing a new song ; their home is not to be in the Old, but in the 
New Jerusalem, where they shall dwell on a new earth, and walk in 
glory beneath a new heaven. Now it were surely strange, when all 
things else are new, if they themselves were not to partake of this gen- 
eral renovation. Nor strange only, for such a change is indispensable. 
A new name without a new nature were an imposture. It were not 
more an untruth to call a lion a lamb, or the rapacious vulture by the 
name of the gentle dove, than to give the title of sons of God to the 
venomous seed of the Serpent. 



REPENTANCE. 

1. God Rejoicing Over Repenting Sinners. 

(412.) Some wretched and heart-broken creature, the flower which 
has been trodden on the street where the villain hand that plucked had 
thrown it when its freshness and bloom were gone — one polluted in 
body and in mind — one lost to virtue and shunned by decency — one for 
whom none cared but a mother, who clung to hope, and with love burn- 
ing in its ashes, wept and prayed in secret for her she never named, is 
converted ; and think of God in heaven feeling more joy than the 



RESURRECTION, THE. 151 

mother who on a wild winter's night has opened her door to the wan- 
derer's moaning cry ; and while she hastens to tell the glad tidings to 
humble and sympathizing neighbors, think of him telling them to his 
angels, and calling them to rejoice with him that the dead is alive again 
and the lost is found ; think of the joyful alacrity with which those 
happy, holy spirits haste, if so employed to do the Saviour's bidding 
— prepare another mansion and weave another crown. 

2. Angels Rejoicing over the Repentance of a Sinner. 

(413.) What value belongs to these souls of ours, when the repent- 
ance and salvation even of one sinner is thought worthy of being pub- 
lished in heaven and sung to the music of angels' harps ? We may be 
assured that it is from a dreadful doom the soul is saved ; and that it 
was over a fearful abyss it hung when Jesus plucked it from the wreck. 
Angels had not otherwise turned an eager gaze from heaven on earth, 
and looked down from their lofty realms to watch the issue with breath- 
less interest, and feel such joy at the result. 

3. Truest and Deepest Repentance. 

(414.) A sense of God's kindness is the spring of deepest sorrow ; 
and the repentance that succeeds forgiveness is truer and deeper than 
any which precedes it. Therefore when God says, " I will establish 
with thee an everlasting covenant," he adds, " then shalt thou remem- 
ber thy ways, and be ashamed." It was when Jesus, whom Peter had 
denied, turned a look of love and pity on him, that Simon, pierced to 
the heart, went out to weep bitterly. 



RESURRECTION, THE. 

1. The Matchless Change at the Resurrection. 

(415.) Who saw the rolling waves stand up a rocky wall ; who saw 
the water of Cana flow out rich purple wine ; who saw Lazarus' s fester- 
ing corpse, with health glowing on its cheek, and its arms enfolding 
sisters ready to faint with joy, saw nothing to match the change the 
grave shall work on these mouldering bones. Sown in corruption, they 
shall rise in incorruption, mortal putting on immortality. How beauti- 
ful they shall be ! Never more shall hoary time write age on a wrinkled 
brow. The whole terrible troop of diseases cast with sin into hell, the 
saints shall possess unfading beauty, and enjoy a perpetual youth ; a 
pure soul shall be mated with a worthy partner in a perfect body, and 
an angel form shall lodge an angel mind. 



152 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

RICHES. 

1. The Mean Between Riches and Poverty. 

(416.) The regions which lie mid- way between the equator and the 
poles are proved by experience to be most favorable to life and its en- 
joyments ; and so those conditions which lie mid-way between the op- 
posite extremes of poverty and riches, are found most conducive to 
man's spiritual welfare. 

2. Danger and Deceitful Influence of Riches. 

(417.) The danger and deceitful influence of riches, their tendency 
to turn our thoughts away from another world, and drown such concern 
for the soul as providences or preachers may have awakened, in the cup 
of pleasure, is awfully expressed in the saying of our Lord, " It is easier 
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of God." Dr. Johnson put the point well 
when, on Garrick showing him his beautiful mansion and grounds, the 
great moralist and good man laid his hand kindly on the player's 
shoulder, and said, " Ah ! David, David, these are the things which 
make a death-bed terrible !" 

3. Earthly and Heavenly Riches. 

(418.) Again, if wealthy, you may reside in a splendid mansion, but 
it is to leave it one day for the narrow house ; you may pamper the 
body with the costliest luxuries, but you are fattening it for worms ; nor 
can the flashing blaze of a thousand diamonds blind our eyes to the 
melancholy fact that this gay, beautiful, charming form shall, stripped 
of all that bravery, be wrapped in a shroud, nailed up in a coffin, and 
thrust down into a black hole to rot. But give me the treasures of re- 
demption, my food is manna, and my wine is love ; my sweet pillow 
the bosom of the Son and my strong defence the arm of Almighty God; 
my home that palace, eternal in the heavens, where angels' harps sup- 
ply the music, and woven of Jesus' righteousness the robes are fairer 
than angels wear. 

4. Very Unfortunate for Some Men to be Wealthy. 

(419.) A young man, liberally endowed with wealth, and, better 
still, with admirable moral qualities, had, elbowing his way through 
the crowd, come to Jesus ; and, with gaze fixed on heaven and wings 
outspread for flight, sought his counsel — saying, Good master, what 
shall I do to inherit eternal life ? Go, was the answer, sell all that thou 
hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and 



RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 153 

come, follow- me ! He was not prepared for this — for such a complete 
surrender of all which men hold dear. He longed, and looked, and 
wistfully looked again ; but the price was too high. He was unfortu- 
nate enough, as others have been, to be very wealthy ; and so, though 
Jesus loved him and followed his departing steps with kindly interest, 
he returned to the embraces of the world — strange yet true conjunction 
— "sorrowful, for he had great possessions." What an event for a 
sermon ! — the subject Mammon, and he the text. Seizing the occasion, 
and taking his eyes from this youth, as with drooping head and slow, 
reluctant steps, he disappears in the distance, Jesus turns a solemn, sad 
look on his disciples to say, ' ' Verily I say unto you, that a rich man 
shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, 
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich 
man to enter the kingdom of God.'' 



RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 

1. Imputed Righteousness of Christ. 

(420.) Bring forth the fairest robe and put it on him, says the father. 
It is done ; and, the rags of the swine-herd stript off, the best robe in 
the house is thrown over his naked shoulders, and flows in rich beauty 
to his bleeding feet ; and there now he stands — a beautiful type of the 
investiture of a sinner in the righteousness and imputed merits of the 
Saviour — the best robe in God's own house. 

2. The Robe of Jesus' Righteousness. 

(421.) Best of all shrouds, may you be wrapped in the " clean linen" 
of Jesus' righteousness ! With that robe around you may you rise from 
the grave ! — this your plea — ' ' Almighty God ! of my own works I have 
nothing to say but this, What is bad in them is mine ; what is good in 
them is thine. Behold this pardon — look on this robe, and know now 
whether it be thy Son's coat or no." 

3. A Spotless Robe of Righteousness. 

(422.) And it is well all should remember, when you wash on a Sab- 
bath morning, that your soul needs washing in another laver ; and, 
when your person is decked for church, that you need other robes — 
robes fairer than worm spins or shuttles weave, or the wealth of banks- 
can buy. See that by faith ye put on that righteousness, even that 
righteousness of Jesus Christ, in which God sees neither spot, nor stain, 
nor any such thing. 



154 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

RIGHTEOUSNESS, MAN'S. 

1. Mail's Righteousness, Filthy Rags. 

(423.) Now since God pronounces our righteousness — observe, not 
our wickednesses, but our devotions, our charities, our costliest sacri- 
fices, our most applauded services — to be "filthy rags," trust not to 
them. What man in his senses would think of going to court in rags ? 
Nor think that the righteousness of the cross was wrought to patch up 
these ; to make up, as some say, for what is defective and wanting in 
our own merits. Nor fancy, like some who would have a Saviour and 
yet keep their sins, that you may wear the rags beneath this righteous- 
ness. Put them away ; not as a dress, which a man lays aside, to be 
afterward resumed ; but cast them away, like a beggar who, having got 
a better attire, flings his rags into the nearest ditch, and leaves them 
there in their foulness to rottenness and decay. 



ROMANISM. 

1. Vatican-made Deities. 

(424.) Rome's characteristic is to multiply objects of worship, and to 
bow down to canonized men and women, to sacred images and winking 
pictures ; in a word, it can never have gods enough nor lords enough ; 
it is an example, not of atheism, but of pleistotheism ; Olympus was 
nothing to the Paradise of Vatican-made deities. 

2. The Idolatry of Romanism. 

(425.) Look to the Church of Rome ! Hertemples are crowded with 
images. Fancy some old Roman, rising from his grave on the banks of 
the Tiber. Looking on the sensuous worship of modern Rome, the 
honors paid to a doll decked out to represent Christ's mother — multi- 
tudes prostrate at the feet of stone apostles — the incense and prayers 
offered to the lifeless effigy of a man, here hanging in weakness on a 
cross, or there sitting in triumph on the globe where he sways a sceptre, 
and treads a serpent beneath his feet, what could he suppose but that 
the " eternal city" had changed her idols — nor ceased from her idola- 
try ; and, by some strange turn of fortune, had given to one Jesus the 
old throne of Jupiter, and assigned the crown which Juno wore in his 
days to another queen of heaven ? 

3. Salvation by Works, Rome's Principle. 
(426.) The Church of Rome taught her people to recommend them- 



SALVATION. 155 

selves to the favor of God by good works, as she calls them — fastings 
and watchings, gifts of charity to the poor and of piety to the church, 
lives of voluntary poverty, and various acts of painful penance. Her 
Sustentation Fund is the doctrine of purgatory : and, notwithstanding 
the ostentatious parade she makes of cross and crucifix, her principle, to 
all practical intents and purposes, is salvation by works. This appears in 
every country where, removed from the restraining influences of Pro- 
testantism, her character, like a plant growing in its native soil, is fully 
developed. There only, popery is seen aright ; as is the lion in the 
desert he shakes with his cruel roar, or the tiger in the Indian jungles 
through which, crashing like a bolt, she makes her fatal spring ; not in 
those menageries where, confined within iron bars and subdued by hun- 
ger, these savage beasts, but occasionally growling, quietly pace their 
narrow bounds, and cower beneath the keeper's eye. 



SALVATION. 

1. The Inestimable Value of the Gospel Salvation. 

(427.) The costliest jewel mentioned by ancient writers is a pearl which 
helonged to Cleopatra, the beautiful but infamous queen of Egypt, and 
the strongest proof which historians have to give of the wanton and 
boundless extravagance of some of their emperors is the fact that they 
dissolved pearls in vinegar and drank them with their wine. In harmony 
^vith these passages of profane history, the parable of the Pearl of Great 
Price and other parts of sacred Scripture prove that among jewels the 
highest place in former times was assigned to pearls, from which we are 
warranted to conclude that when our Lord compared " the kingdom of 
leaven," the blessings, in other words, of redeeming love, to " one 
pearl of great price," he intended to set them forth as of pre-eminent 
value ; as, in fact, amid a thousand things desirable, the one thing need- 
ful. 

2. The Sacrifices at which Salvation was Obtained. 

(428.) Nor does this pearl present an emblem of salvation in respect 
only of its incalculable price and intrinsic characters. In the hazards 
And sacrifices at which both were obtained, we discern, however faintly, 
another point of resemblance. Other gems, the diamond and ruby and 
emerald and sapphire, lie bedded in river-courses, or set in the solid 
Tocks ; and there men seek them without loss of health or risk of life. 
But pearls belong to the ocean ; they are gems which she casts not up 
among the pebbles that strew her beach, but hides in her dangerous and 
darkest depths. Hence a dreadful trade is the pearl-fisher's. Weight- 



15 G GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

ed with stone to sink him, and inhaling a long, deep-drawn breath, he 
leaps from the boat's side, and, the parting waves closing above his 
head, descends into the depths of the sea to grope for the shelly spoils 
amid the dim light which faintly illuminates her slimy bed ; nor rises, 
breathless and black in face, to the surface till on-lookers have begun 
to fear he will rise no more. And not unfrequently he never does. 
These waters are the haunts of terrible monsters ; and marked for its 
prey by the swift and fierce and voracious shark, in vain the wretched 
man stirs the muddy bottom to raise a cloud to cover his escape. Some 
air-bells bubbling up, and blood that spreads, crimsoning the surface of 
the sea, are all that is evermore seen of one who dies a sacrifice to his 
hazardous pursuits ; and the story of the dangers which pearl-fishers 
have always to encounter, and the dreadful deaths they have often to 
endure, will recall to a reflective mind the memory of Him who, in sal- 
vation, purchased this pearl at so great a price — giving His life for ours, 
and dying the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. 

3. Its Perfect Character. 

(429.) But, besides its money value, a pearl such as this presented a 
remarkable as well as beautiful emblem of salvation in other aspects — 
in, for instance, a color of snowy whiteness, a purity unclouded by the 
slightest haze, and a form so round and polished and perfect that it was- 
impossible to improve it. The lapidary, to whose grinding skill the very 
diamond owes much of its brilliancy and those many-colored fires with 
which it shines and burns, may not touch a pearl. His art cannot add 
to its beauty — the polish of its snowy surface, or the perfection of its 
rounded form. And what an emblem, therefore, is this gem of that sal- 
vation which came perfect from the hand of God — of that righteousness 
of Jesus Christ which, as no guilt of ours can stain, no works of ours- 
can improve — of that Gospel which, as revealed in the Bible, is without 
defect of truth or admixture of error. 

4. The Pivot on which Salvation Turns. 

(430.) Whose was the love salvation sprang from ? whose the Eden 
promise that begat hope in the bosom of despair ? whose the finger that 
wrote the holy law ? whose the prophets that heralded the Saviour 1 
whose the Son that was cradled in Bethlehem and crucified on Calvary ? 
whose the Spirit that, taking of the things of Christ, applies them — 
turning the sinner into a saint, a child of the devil into a son of God 
and an heir of glory ? These questions admit of but one answer. That 
love, that promise, that finger, that Son, that Spirit is God's. In him 
all our well-springs are ; nor by any hand but his was forged one single 



SALVATION. 157 

link of the golden chain that hinds believers to the skies : ' ' Whom he 
did foreknow them he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of 
his Son ; and whom he did predestinate, them he also called ; and 
whom he called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he 
also glorified. 

5. Effort Required on Our Part. 

(431.) The soul is not, as some seem to think, a piece of softened 
wax, receiving the image of God as that does the impress of a seal. We 
receive salvation ; still, we must put forth our hand for it, as the starv- 
ing for a loaf of bread ; as he who dies of thirst for a cup of water ; as 
a drowning man, who eagerly eyes and rapidly seizes the falling rope — 
clinging to it with a grasp that neither his weight nor the waves can 
loose. 

6. Salvation Free to All. 

(432.) Is there not a fountain opened to the house of David, and to 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanliness ? Is it not 
true that whosoever seeks salvation there, may wash and shall be clean ? 
Most true. Jesus has filled that fountain with blood, and, once bathed 
there, the foulest become white as snow. Blessed truth ! that fountain 
is free to all ; free as air, free as light, free as the waves of ocean, where 
man, who parcels out God's earth, and forbids other foot than his own 
to tread on it, claims no exclusive property — where the beggar may go 
in to bathe abreast of a king. 

7. Putting Off Salvation. 

(433.) Were we to judge of the matter by the conduct of many, we 
should conclude it to be by no means a difficult thing to be a Christian. 
They seem to think it almost as easy to wash one's heart as their hands ; 
to change their habits as their dress ; to admit the light of Divine truth 
into the soul as the morning into our chamber by opening the shutters — 
in short, that it is not more difficult to turn the heart from evil to good, 
from the world to God, and from sin to Christ, than to turn a ship right 
round by help of her helm. 

(434.) How else can we account for many, otherwise sensible people, 
putting off their salvation to a time confessedly unsuitable for any 
arduous task whatever — till, reduced to a state of mental and physical 
prostration, they lie languishing on a bed of sickness, or tossing on a 
bed of death ? 

8. God is Mighty to Save. 

(435.) It is equally easy for God to supply our greatest as our smallest 
wants, to carry our heaviest as our lightest burden — just as it is as easy 



158 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

for the great ocean to bear on her bosom a ship of war with all its guns 
and crew aboard, as a fisherman's boat or the tiniest craft that floats, 
falling and rising on her swell. In the most desperate cases of sinners 
and in the darkest circumstances of saints, " when all power is gone" 
and there seems no outget or deliverance, God is mighty to save. Con- 
fident in his resources, he says, Is anything too hard for me ? — Prove 
me herewith, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you 
out a blessing till there is no room to contain — Who is he that fcareth 
the Lord and obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness 
and hath no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay him- 
self on his God. 

9. Seeking Salvation. 

(436.) Nicodemus, who repaired to Christ under the cloud of night, 
was one seeking goodly pearls ; so also was the centurion, who " was a 
just man and one that feared God," and to whom Peter was sent with 
the tidings of a Saviour ; and so in some sense also was that unhappy 
youth who with more courage than Nicodemus came in open day, and 
pushing his way through the crowd, thus accosted our Lord, " Good 
master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ?" — only when Jesus told 
him to sell all, he judged the terms too hard, the cost too great. 

10. The Source of Salvation. 

(437.) Some talk as if we were saved just because Christ paid our 
debt, representing God's share in the transaction as little else than that 
of a severe, stern, unrelenting creditor, who takes no interest in his 
imprisoned debtor beyond letting him out when the surety has taken up 
the bond. Is this true ? Is it fair to God ? True ? It is utterly false. 
Salvation flows from a higher source than Calvary. It has its fountain, 
not in the cross of the incarnate Son, but in the bosom of the eternal 
Father. These hoar hills with their time-furrowed brows, that ocean 
which bears on its face no mark of age, those morning stars which sang 
together when our world was born, these old heavens, are not so old as 
the love of God. 

11. The Infatuation of Rejecting Salvation. 

(438.) One might fancy that now all are certain to be saved. Who 
will not accept of it ? Offer a starving man bread, he will take it ; offer 
a poor man money, he will take it ; offer a sick man health, he will take 
it ; offer an ambitious man honor, he will take it ; offer a life-boat in 
the wreck, a pardon at the gallows, oh ! how gladly he will take them. 
Salvation, which is the one thing needful, is the only thing man will not 
accept. He will stoop to pick up a piece of gold out of the mire, but 



SALVATION. 159 

he will not rise out of the mire to receive a crown from heaven. What 
folly ! What infatuation ! May God by his Spirit empty our hearts of 
pride, and take away the heart of unbelief ! Vain here is the help of 
man. Arise, O Lord, and plead the cause that is thine own. Break 
the spell of sin, and help us to say with the man of old, Lord, I believe, 
help thou mine unbelief ! 

12. God Glorifying Himself in Saving Man. 

(439.) Now, in the eye of reason, and of a humanity that weeps over 
a suffering world, his is surely the nobler vocation — and, if not more 
honored — the more honorable calling who sheds blood, not to kill, but 
cure ; who wounds not that the wounded may die, but live ; and whose 
genius ransacks earth and ocean in search of means to save life, to re- 
move deformity, to repair decay, to invigorate failing powers, and restore 
the rose of health to pallid cheeks. His aim is not to inflict pain, but 
relieve it — not to destroy a father, but — standing between him and 
death — to save his trembling wife from widowhood, and these little 
children from an orphan's lot. And if, although they be wove round 
no coronet, those are fairer and fresher laurels which are won by saving 
than by slaying ; if it is a nobler thing to rescue life than destroy it, 
even when its destruction is an act of justice ; then, on the same princi- 
ple, God most glorified himself when revealed in the flesh, and speaking 
by his Son, he descended on a guilty world, this his purpose — " I came 
not to judge the world, but to save it" — and this his character — " The 
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in good- 
ness and truth." 

13. Work Out Your Salvation. 

(440.) Busy ? So, in a way, are the children who, when the tide is 
at the ebb, with merry laughter and rosy cheeks and nimble hands build 
a castle of the moist seasand — the thoughtless urchins, types of lovers of 
pleasure and of the world, so intent on their work as not to see how the 
treacherous, silent tide has crept around them, not merely to sap and 
undermine, and with one rude blow demolish the work of their hands, 
but to cut off their retreat to the distant shore, and drown their frantic 
screams and cries for help in the roar of its remorseless waves. From a 
death-bed, where all he toiled and sinned and sorrowed for is slipping 
from his grasp, fading from his view, such will his life seem to the busi- 
est worldling ; he spends his strength for nought, and his labor for that 
which profiteth not. With an eye that pities because it foresees our 
miserable doom, God calls us from such busy trifling, from a life of 
laborious idleness, to a service which is as pleasant as it is profitable, as 
graceful as it is dutiful, saying — Work out your salvation — Work 



160 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

■while it is called today, seeing that the night coraeth when no man can 
"work. 

14. No One Need Despair of Salvation. 

(441.) Gracious, glorious change ! Have you felt it ? May it be felt 
hy all of us ! You have it here in this woman, who, grieved in her 
mind, lies a-weeping at the feet of Jesus. She was a sinner. Her con- 
dition had been the basest ; her bread the bitterest ; her company the 
worst. She is casting off her vile, sinful slough. She leaves it. She 
rises a new creature. The beauty of the Lord is on her ; and now, with 
wings of faith and love wide outspread, she follows her Lord to heaven. 
How encouraging the wonders of converting grace ! Let us despair of 
none — neither of ourselves nor any one else. 

15. Holiness not a Prerequisite to Going to Christ. 

(442.) A slight wedge of wood or small pebble; lying upon the slip, 
prevents the vessel from being launched on the bosom of a tide that 
swells to receive her in its arms. The full tide of love flows in Jesus' 
heart, his bosom is open to receive the sinner, everything conspires to 
his salvation, and yet in such happy circumstances, we have seen the 
notion, that a man must be holy before he goes to Christ, arrest a soul 
that had already moved, advanced, got some way in its course, and, as 
we thought, was off for heaven. This is a delusion of the enemy of 
souls. I believe it to be a common wile of Satan. 

16. A Saving Word. 

(443.) Now, to this state, and this very confession, all who are to be 
saved must first be brought. " I perish," is a saving word. '• I per- 
ish, ' ' like the cry of a child in the natal chamber, is the first utterance 
of a new existence. He who raises bis eyes to heaven to cry, " I per- 
ish," " Lord, save me, I perish," has planted his foot on the first round 
of the ladder that raises man from earth to heaven. 



SANCTIFICATION. 

1. The Christian an Example of Gradual Development. 

(444.) The Christian is an example of gradual development. When 
our growth is quickest, how slow it is ! As, from some fresh stain we 
wash our hands in the blood of Jesus ; as, from the field of daily con- 
flict we retire at evening to seek the healing of the balm of Gilead ; as, 
with David, we eye some eminence from which we have fallen, or, look- 



SATAN. 161 

ing back on some former period, measure the little progress we have 
made — how often are we constrained to ask in disappointment, " When 
shall I be holy ?" How often are we constrained to cry in prayer, 
'" How long, Lord, how long ?" At times it looks as if the dawn 
would never brighten into day. We almost fear that our fate shall have 
its emblem in some unhappy flower, which — withered by frost, or the 
home of a worm — never blows at all ; but dies like an unborn infant, 
whose coffin is a mother's womb. This shall not happen with any child 
of grace. God will perform all things for his people, and perfect what 
concerneth them. Still, although He who has begun a good work in 
them will carry it on to the day of the Lord Jesus, all the figures of 
Scripture indicate a gradual progress. The believer is a babe who grows 
" to the stature of a perfect man in Christ," and " the path of the just 
is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day." 



SATAN. 



1. Satan's Defiance and Defeat. 

(445.) When his vessel has broken in the storm, and Ajax stands 
unsheltered on a rock in mid-ocean, he is represented as in anger with 
the gods, shaking his clenched hand at heaven. In Eden, for a time at 
least, Satan stands in a different and prouder position ; he has con- 
quered ; he has won the victory ; who shall pluck it from his grasp ? 
He tramples on earth, and laughs at heaven. God permits him to 
scale the walls, to carry the citadel by assault, and to plant for a time 
his defiant standard on the battlements of this world. He does this, 
that from his proud eminence he may hurl him into a deeper hell ; and, 
angels rejoicing in man's salvation, and devils discomfited in their 
leader's defeat — both friends and foes — might be constrained to say, 
" Hast thou an arm like God, or canst thou thunder with a voice like 
his?" 

2. Triumph and Defeat of Satan. 

(446.) Placed on probation, man looked, lusted, ate, sinned, and fell. 
Satan triumphed. With the ruins of Eden around him, he stood above 
the grave of human hopes, and, as it seemed also, of heaven's intentions. 
He contemplated with proud satisfaction the triumph of his malignant 
subtilty. As he wrung the first tears from human eyes, I can fancy how 
hie taunted his weeping victims with the question — " Where is now thy 
<rod?" Pharaoh, ere God had done with him, and he with God, got 
his question answered — " Who is the Lord, that I should obey his 



162 OEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

voice ?" And the devil got his answered, too. When the fulness of 
time has come, in a son of that woman Satan meets her God, to find in 
him not a match only, bat a Master. 

3. How Satan is Overcome. 

(44*7.) Man falls ; the world is lost ; Satan triumphs. How does 
God pluck the victory from his hands ? He might have discharged 
thunderbolts on his head ; he might have overwhelmed this enemy by 
sending down upon him legions of embattled angels. It is not so. He 
meets him, matches him, masters him by a solitary Man. Beneath the 
heel of a Man of sorrows he crushes the serpent's head. A Son of man 
is the Saviour of man ; a brother rises up in our house to redeem his- 
brethren ; a Conqueror appears in the conquered family. Out of the 
mouth of a Suckling — by One nursed on a woman's bosom, and carried 
in a woman's arms — he ordaineth strength. Never was the tide of 
battle so strangely, so completely, so triumphantly turned. The Babe 
of a cradle wears the crown of the universe ; and by One who died, 
God destroys " death, and him that had the power of death, that is,. 
the devil." 

4. Tempts us when Distressed. 

(448.) The lion is said to be the boldest in the storm. His roar i& 
never so loud as in the pauses of the thunder, and when the lightning 
flashes, brightest are the flashes of his cruel eye ; and even so he, who, 
as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour, often 
seizes the hour of nature's distress to assault us with his fiercest 
temptations. Satan tempted Job when he was bowed down with grief. 
Satan tempted Jesus when he was faint with hunger. Satan tempted 
Peter when he was weary with watching and heart-broken with sorrow.* 

5. Emblems of Satan. 

(449.) Satan is compared to a lion ; and what emblem could be more 
appropriate, if you take into account its cruel nature, its stealthy ap- 
proach, its frightful roar, its terrible aspect, its bloody jaws, its raven- 
ous appetite, and the death that follows a blow of its paw ? The other 
most common scriptural emblem of the devil is a serpent. It was in 
the form of that reptile he stole into Eden ; and, with malice gleaming 
in its fiery eye, poison concealed in its crooked fangs, fascination in its 
gaze, death in its spring ; and this peculiar habit, that while other 
creatures usually content themselves with a portion of their prey, 
the serpent, crushing the bones and covering the body with slime, swal- 
lows it entire — the animal world furnishes no creature that represents so. 
well the deceiver and destroyer of souls as this hateful, horrid reptile. 



SCIENCE. 163 

6. A Sleepless and Ceaseless Adversary. 

(450.) Woe to the man, in these old games, who allowed his competi- 
tor to catch him off his guard. Woe to the man who turned to look on 
father, mother, wife, or mistress. Woe to the man who lifted his eyes 
but for a moment from the glaring eyeball of his antagonist ; that 
moment a ringing blow fells him to the earth — he bites the dust. Not 
less does our safety depend on constant prayer and watchfulness. " Be 
instant in prayer. " "Pray without ceasing." "Watch and pray." 
Ah ! you will never have to offer Satan an advantage twice. Should he 
catch you asleep, as David caught Saul — when he put aside the spear of 
Abashai that gleamed in the moonlight above the unconscious sleeper, 
and whispered, " Destroy him not " — Satan will not be satisfied with 
carrying off spear and water-cruse, or skirt of robe. 

7. Types of Satan. 

(451.) And what is that thief, prowling abroad like a fox, and with 
stealthy foot creeping along under the shadow of the wall ; what that 
assassin, searching the gloom, and listening for the step of his victim's 
approach ; what she, who, issuing from a den of sin, and throwing the 
veil of night over painted cheek and faded finery, lurks in the street for 
her prey — what are these, but types of him who is the enemy of man, 
and takes advantage of spiritual darkness to ensnare or assault God's 
children, and to ruin poor thoughtless sinners. 



SCIENCE. 

1. The Infidel' 's Attack from Physical Science. 

(452.) Foiled at every point, and on every occasion, where they em- 
ployed history, and mental or moral science to attack the Christian 
faith, compelled also to acknowledge that the most formidable sceptics 
of other days, Hobbes and Voltaire, David Hume and Tom Paine — 
without followers now save among the dregs of society — were igno- 
miniously defeated, the infidels of our day have changed their plan of 
attack. Obliged to seek new weapons, they are now attempting to 
overthrow the authority of Moses by the authority of physical science ; 
and ever as some old bone, some fragment of ancient pottery, some 
stone axe or arrow-head turns up which they fancy will serve their pur- 
pose, there is great shouting in the camp of the Philistines, and fear 
seizes some that "the ark of God is taken." A bone in Samson's 
hand, the jawbone even of an ass, once did great execution ; as did also 
the piece of pottery which a woman from the beleaguered wall pitched 



164 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

on the head of Abimelech, smiting him to the ground. But the 
enemies of our faith, though using similar weapons, have not achieved 
equal success. 

2. Using the Facts of Science to Undermine Religion. 

(453.) Science may, as science has already done, guide us to a sounder 
understanding of some things in the word of God. While she corrects 
any mistake into which the interpreters of Scripture have fallen, there 
is nothing to dread. Why do the heathen rage ? The only result of 
using the facts of science to undermine the foundations of religion, will 
resemble that wrought by some angry torrent when, sweeping away 
soil and sand and rubbish, it lays bare, and thereby makes more plain, 
the solid rock on which the house stands, unmoved and unmovable. 

3. Confirming the Bible Account of the Destruction of the World. 

(454.) Again, the Bible teaches us that the world is " reserved unto 
fire," and what it long ages ago revealed, is the conclusion to which the 
discoveries of science are now tending. In proof of that, see what one 
of our greatest modern philosophers, who has certainly never stood forth 
as a defender of the faith, says ! He maintains that through the agency 
of volcanoes and other active causes, " the foundations of our earth shall 
be so weakened, that its crust, shaken and rent by reiterated convulsions, 
must in the course of time fall in." " When we consider," says Sir 
Charles Lyell, "the combustible nature of the elements of the earth ; 
the facility with which their compounds may be decomposed and enter 
into new combinations ; the quantity of heat which they evolve during 
these processes ; when we recollect the expansive power of steam, and 
that water itself is composed of two gases which, by their union, pro- 
duce intense heat ; when we call to mind the number of explosive and 
detonating compounds which have been already discovered ; we may be 
allowed to share the astonishment of Pliny, that a single day should pass 
without a general conflagration : ' Excedit profecto, omnia miracula, 
ullum diem fuisse, quo non cuncta confiagrarent. ' ' ' 

4. Credulity of Scientific Men. 

(455.) Looking at the future in the light of the past, we can only 
wonder at the timidity of those who fear these assaults, and at the 
credulity of such as, however fond of novelties, allow such crude and 
silly arguments to seduce them from the faith. 

(456.) For example, a few years since a human jawbone was paraded 
before the world. It was said to have been dug out of a gravel-bed in 
France of so great antiquity that the person to whom it belonged must 



SCIENCE. 1C5 

have existed many thousand years antecedent to the period at which 
Moses places the first appearance of man on the earth. Well, this bone, 
whose vast age was to demolish the authority of the Bible, being sawn 
asunder, was examined : and with what result ? Its internal condition 
demonstrated that, instead of being older than the age of Adam, it was 
but a few, even if a few, years older than those who were more the 
dupes of their own hatred to religion, than of the workmen that had 
stolen this fragrant of mortality from a churchyard, and palmed it off on 
these credulous sceptics. 

5. The Nilotic Brick Demolishing Moses. 

(457.) There is another and similar fact, much too instructive to be 
left in the oblivion to which mortified and defeated infidels would fain 
consign it. Years ago, a brick was found on the banks of the Nile, 
but many feet beneath their surface. These banks are formed of the 
slimy and fertile mud which each annual overflow deposits in the green 
valley of that famous river ; and assuming — for all the theories opposed 
to Christianity are full of assumptions as the basis of their calculations — 
that these deposits have been of the same thickness, one year with 
another, from the most remote antiquity, such was the depth at which 
this brick was found, that it must have been made many thousand years 
before the time at which Moses fixes the creation of man. So infidels 
alleged and argued. How they told this in Gath, and published it in 
the streets of Ashkelon ! With this brick they had inflicted a blow on 
the head of Moses, from which he could not possibly recover — with him 
not, " Babylon the Great," but the faith of Christendom had fallen. 
Well, the defenders of the faith were puzzled, and not a little perplexed. 
It was not easy to prove that the deposits of the Nile were irregular, and 
that the foundations, therefore, on which the attack rested were unsound. 
But, teaching us not to allow our confidence in the faith to be easily 
shaken by things which are at first, and even may continue, inexplicable, 
the problem was at length solved. The difficulty was finally and 
authoritatively removed. This famous brick fell into the hands of 
one familiar with the works of antiquity, and above all others expert in 
determining their age. He examined it ; and proved to demonstration 
that, however it got buried in the valley of the Nile, or whatever be the 
rate of increase in the river's alluvial deposits, that brick did not carry 
us back to ages antecedent to Mosaic history. It was of Roman manu- 
facture, and belonged to an age no older than the Caesars. 

6. Modern Science and Moses. 

(458.) Again, and to take one other example from Moses' account of 
the Creation, he represents light as having been formed before the sun 



166 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

was hung in heaven to rule the day, or the moon to rule the night. 
According to him ere day or night was, God sent forth the Jiat, " Let 
there be light, and there was light. " And taking their stand on an 
apparent impossibility, infidels have challenged the soundness of his 
philosophy ; asking in tones of undisguised triumph, How could there 
be light before, and without, the sun ? Well, this was a difficulty. 
Satisfied on other and impregnable grounds of the truth of the sacred 
narrative, Christians felt confident that the objection admitted of an 
answer ; but till science came to the rescue, such answers as they 
attempted were more ingenious than satisfactory. The difficulty, how- 
ever, has vanished ; and Moses' account, no longer a subject for cavilling, 
is found to be in perfect harmony with the discoveries and the doctrines 
of modern science. Inspired of God, he anticipated our tardy discoveries. 
Relating that light was created before the sun appeared, he represents it 
as an element existing independently of that luminary. And so it does. 
This is now all but universally admitted — light being regarded as the 
effect of the undulations of an ether which, infinitely subtle and elastic, 
pervades all space, and finds but exciting causes in the sun, combustion 
and electricity. 

7. Science Dismisses all Adams but One. 

(459.) Our world is inhabited by various races of men — different 
specimens, not different species. The Malay, the Negro, the race early 
cradled among Caucasian mountains, and the Red Indians of the 
New World ; these all differ from each other in the color of the skin, 
in the contour of the skull, in the cast and character of their features. 
Whence came these different races ? 

(460.) If, in order to account for these different races on the principles 
of unchallengeable physiology, it could be proved that Europe, Africa, and 
America must, as well as Asia, have had their parent pairs ; if it could 
be proved that there must of necessity have been as many Adams 
ks there are races of men, then it is plain that we must yield up the 
divine authority of the Bible, and read the story of Moses as an old- 
world fable — some fragment of Egyptian wisdom which he had embalmed 
in the page of Genesis. Infidelity, quick to see what would serve her 
purpose, has attempted to prove this, and challenged religion to meet 
her on the field of science. Her challenge has been accepted. Men-at- 
arms in the ranks of the faith have taken up the gauntlet ; the battle 
has been fought, and fought out ; and now, to the confusion and com- 
plete discomfiture of the infidel, it stands demonstrated, that in this 
question, as in others, science is in perfect harmony with revelation. 
Dismissing all Adams but one, she demands no more thau the Bible 



8W. 167 

grants, will receive no more than it offers, believe no more than it 
reveals ; concluding that all these varieties of the human family are, in 
the providence of God and in the hands of an Omnipotence which 
delights in variety, the offspring of a single pair. 



SERVANTS. 



1. Servants Honored. 



(461.) Not the least interesting of the monuments I saw amid the 
venerable ruins of Rome was one which held within its broken urn some 
half-burned bones. They were the ashes of one, who, as appeared from 
the inscription on the tablet, had belonged to Caesar's household, and to 
the memory of whose virtues as a faithful, honest, and devoted servant, 
the Emperor himself had ordered that marble to be raised. When 
wandering among the tombstones of a quiet churchyard, nothing has 
pleased me more than to light on one raised by a family over the grave 
of some old faithful nurse, or aged retainer of their house ; and near by 
this "gray metropolis of the north" there lies a cemetery, where the 
traveller who goes to meditate among the tombs will find a monumental 
stone erected by our own gracious Sovereign to the memory of a faithful 
servant. Such honors are rare ; too rare ; too seldom bestowed. Let 
servants see to it that they are not too seldom deserved ; and that, 
ii doing all as to the Lord and not to men," they earn, besides their 
wages, such a character as his master might have engraven on Eliezer's 
tombstone, — Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving 
the Lord. 



SIN. 



1. Glozing over Sin. 

(462.) Every age, present or remote, has sought to gloze over sin. 
For example, sceptics and infidels — as if all who believe in God's word 
were enslaved — claim to be " Free Thinkers ; " again the vile seducer is 
only described as " loose" who, under the mask of affection, steals in 
her virtue woman's most precious jewel, and tramples on her bleeding 
heart; again, they are merely said to live "fast" who wreck their 
fortunes, ruin their hapless children, impair their constitution, precipi- 
tate their death, drown their senses and damn their souls with drink ; 
again, " unfortunate " is the mild term applied to her who, like a night 
wolf, prowls the streets for prey, and whose den, in the judgment of 



168 QEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

Solomon, and the bitter experience of her victims, is " the way to hell ; ** 
again, the duellists, who went out to settle a petty quarrel with loaded 
pistols, and shoot each other dead, were said to engage in "an affair of 
honor ; " and, but some few years ago, " the domestic institution " was- 
the soft and gentle term applied to that wide-spread, gigantic, infamous, 
infernal slavery, from the stain, the burning shame, and bitter curse of 
which America has only escaped by years of war, at the cost of millions 
of money and rivers of human blood. 

2. A Life-long Battle with Sin. 

(463.) Other soldiers have easy times of peace, when swords rust idly 
in their sheaths, and the trumpet sounds but for parade. Not he. 
There is never a day but he has to fight this enmity to the holy will and 
sovereign ways of God. His life is a long battle and a hard battle ; 
and, like a soldier tired of war, though true to his colors, he often 
wishes that it were over, as, overcome of evil, and vexed with himself, 
he throws himself on his knees to cry, Create in me a clean heart, 
God, and renew a right spirit within me. Be merciful unto me, God, 
be merciful unto me. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ; wash 
me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 

3. The Sum of our Sins. 

(464.) He owed an immense debt. — This is expressed by the very 
number here — ten thousand, or a myriad, being the highest in the Greek 
notation. Nor does the debt look less when narrowly examined — being 
such indeed as could have only been contracted by one who, represent- 
ing his sovereign in some wealthy province of an Eastern empire, had 
squandered in boundless extravagance revenues that should have swelled 
the public treasury. In Roman talents this debt amounts to five millions 
of our money ; and if we reckon by the Jewish talent, and calculate the 
amount in gold, and not in silver, it rises to a sum equal almost to the 
whole revenue of the British empire — the servant stands indebted to his 
master more than seventy millions sterling. 

4. Pr oneness of even Christians to Sin. 

(465.) When age has stiffened its bark and fibres, if you bend a 
branch into a new direction, either turn that to the right hand which 
had grown to the left, or raise the bough to the skies which had been 
bent on the ground, it is long before it loses the tendency to resume its 
old position. And many years after its course has been changed, and 
the art, that conquers nature, has turned its waters into a new cut, the 
river needs careful watching ; else, when swollen by winter snows or 



SIN. 16$ 

summer floods, it bursts our barriers, sweeps dyke and bulwark to the 
sea, and, in tbe pride of victory, foams, and roars, and rages, in its old 
accustomed channel. Even so, when God has laid hands upon us, and 
grace has given our earthly soul a heavenward bent, how prone it is to 
start back again ! 

5. Guard against the Beginning of Sin. 

(466.) Let me also warn you that such a holy life as the text enjoins, 
is impossible to all but those who are on their guard against the begin- 
nings of evil. Take alarm at an evil thought, wish, desire. These are 
the germs of sin — the floating seeds which drop into the heart, and find- 
ing in our natural corruption a fat and favorable soil, spring up into ac- 
tual transgressions. These, like the rattle of the snake, the hiss of the 
serpent, reveal the presence and near neighborhood of danger. The 
experience of all good men proves that sin is most easily crushed in the 
bud, and that it is safer to flee from temptation than to fight it. Fight 
like a man when you cannot avoid the battle, but rather flee than fight. 
Be afraid of it, avoid it, abhor it ; let your answer, as you tear yourself 
from the encircling arms of the enchantress, and seek safety in flight, 
be that of Joseph's — " Shall I do this great evil, and sin against 
God?" 

6. God's Abhorrence of Sin. 

(467.) Recollecting the reluctance with which I have seen a heart- 
broken mother make up her mind to disown the prodigal, and drive 
him from her door — knowing, when with slow and trembling hand she 
had barred him out, how it seemed to her as if in that horrid sound she 
had heard the door of heaven bolted against him — and feeling how 
much provocation we ourselves could suffer, ere a bleeding heart would 
consent to turn a child out upon the open streets, and believing also 
that our Father in heaven is kinder than the kindest, and better than 
the best of us, and that the fondest, fullest heart is to his, but as the 
rocky pool — the lodge of some tiny creature — to the great ocean which 
has filled it with a wave, no demonstration of God's abhorrence of sin 
(always excepting the cross of Calvary) comes so impressively to our 
hearts as his expulsion of our unhappy parents from his own blissful 
presence and their sweet home in Eden. 

7. Sin and Suffering. 

(468.) Men talk of poverty, misfortune, disease, bereavement, as. 
evils ! There is no radical evil in this world but sin ; if you still per- 
sist in calling other things evils, remember sin is their mother — these 
her hateful progeny. No sin, no suffering ; no sin, no sorrow ; no sin. 



170 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

no sting, no death, no grave, no hell. We change the saying of Paul, 
and so changed, apply to sins what he spoke of the sailors. He said 
of the seamen, Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved. To 
prevail on you to abandon and cast your sins — these Jonahs — overboard, 
we say, If these abide ye cannot be saved. 

8. Nothing so Easy as to Sin. 

(469.) Have we not learned, by sad experience, that there is nothing 
so easy as to commit sin, and nothing so difficult as to keep out of it — 
even for one hour to keep the heart holy, and the garment unspotted of 
the world ? It seems as natural for man to fall into sin as it is for 
water to sink to the lowest level, or for a stone to fall to the earth. 
But to rise ? Ah, that requires such sustained and continuous efforts as 
those by which the lark soars to the skies, through constant beating of 
its wings. 

9. Dying to Sin. 

(470.) Killed by a bullet, prostrated by a blow, deprived at once of 
consciousness and of existence by means of an opiate or some other nar- 
cotic poison, man may die to natural life quite unconsciously. But thus 
he never dies to sin. Best of all deaths ! yet it is attended by a pain- 
ful, and often a protracted struggle ; during which he is as sensible of 
pain as the victim of a cross, who, when the nails have crashed through 
nerve, and flesh, and bone, hangs convulsed and quivering on its ex- 
tended arms. Hence these striking metaphors : " They that are Christ's 
have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts ;" " But God for- 
bid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by 
whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. ' ' 

10. Sin is a Heart Disease. 

(471.) Like snow drift when it has levelled the churchyard 
mounds, and glistening in the winter sun, iies so pure, and fair, and 
beautiful above the dead, who fester and rot below, a very plausible pro- 
fession, wearing the semblance of innocence, may conceal from human 
eyes the foulest heart-corruption. The grass grows green upon a moun- 
tain that holds a volcano in its bowels. Behind the rosy cheek and soft 
lustrous eye of beauty, how often does there lurk a deadly disease, the 
deadliest of all ! Internal, but all the more dangerous that they are 
internal, such diseases are the last to be suspected or believed in by 
their victims, and the hardest to cure. To other than a skilful eye, or 
a mother's anxious look, this fair and graceful form never wears bloom 
of higher health, nor moves in more fascinating charms, nor wins more 
.admiring eyes, than when fell consumption, like a miner working on in 



am. 171 

darkness, has penetrated the vital organs, and is quietly sapping the 
foundations of life. Like these maladies, sin has its seat within. It 
is a disease of the heart, and the worst of all heart-complaints. 

11. The Saint not Free from Sin. 

(472.) I do not affirm that the most advanced saint is altogether free 
from the bondage of sin. No. The holiest believer carries that about 
with him which painfully reminds him of his old condition. I have 
seen a noble dog which had broken loose and restored itself to his 
liberty, dragging the chain, or some links of it, along with him. I have 
read of brave, stout captives who had escaped from prison, but who 
brought away with them, in swollen joints or festering wounds, the 
marks and injuries of the cruel fetters. And do not old sins thus 
continue to hang about a man even after grace has delivered him from 
"their dominant power ? Have you not felt that these called for constant 
watchfulness and earnest prayer? "Who does not need every day and 
hour to resort to the fountain of cleansing, and wash his heart in the 
l>lood of Christ oftener than he washes his hands in water ? 

12. Sin the Greatest Folly. 

(473.) Sin is the greatest folly, and the sinner the greatest fool in the 
world. There is no such madness in the most fitful lunacy. Think of 
a man risking eternity and his everlasting happiness on the uncertain 
•chance of surviving another year. Think of a man purchasing a mo- 
mentary pleasure at the cost of endless pain. Think of a dying man 
living as if he were never to die. Is there a convert to God who looks 
back upon his unconverted state, and does not say with David, " Lord, 
I was as a beast before thee" ! 

13. Your Sin ivill Find you Out. 

(474.) A man stands a better chance of escape who violates a physical 
than a moral law. This is difficult to be believed. And why ? Just 
because, in the breach of moral laws, judgment does not, as in the 
hreach of physical laws, follow speedily on the transgression, 
nor succeed it as the peal thunders on the flash. Yet it is not 
•more strange than true ; and true, for this plain, satisfactory, and un- 
answerable reason, that he who made the laws which govern the physi- 
cal world, may modify, may change, may even altogether repeal them. 
He has already done so. Iron is heavier than water ; yet did not the 
iron axe swim like a cork at the prophet's bidding ? Did not the un- 
stable element of sea stand up in walls of solid crystal, till the host 
passed over ? Did naked foot, when bathed in morning dew, ever feel 



172 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

the green grass cooler than those three Hebrews, when on the floor of 
the burning furnace, they trod at once beneath their feet a tyrant's power 
and the red hot coals of fire ? Fire may not burn, and water may not 
drown. He who gave their laws to these elements may alter them as he 
sees meet ; but that moral law, which is a transcript of his own mind 
and will, is and must be unchangeable as himself. Be sure, therefore, 
that you cannot sin with impunity. Be sure that your sin will find 
you out. 

14. Returning to Sin is Treading Jesus under Foot. 

(475.) Disheartened by the extraordinary dangers and difficulties of 
their enterprise, one of her armies (ancient Rome) lost courage, and 
resolved on a retreat. The general reasoned with his soldiers. Expos- 
tulating with them, he appealed to their love of country, to their hon- 
or, and to their oaths. By all that could revive a fainting heart he 
sought to animate their courage and shake their resolution. Much they 
trusted, they admired, they loved him, but his appeals were all in vain. 
They were not to be moved ; and carried away, as by a panic, they 
faced round to retreat. At that juncture they were forcing a mountain 
pass ; and had just cleared a gorge where the road, between stupendous- 
rocks on one side and a foaming river on the other, was but a footpath 
— broad enough for the step of a single man. As a last resort, he laid 
himself down there, saying, '" If you will retreat, it is over this body 
you go, trampling me to death beneath your feet." No foot advanced. 
The flight was arrested. His soldiers could face the foe ; but not man- 
gle beneath their feet one who loved them, and had often led their ranks- 
to victory — sharing like a common soldier all the hardships of the cam- 
paign, and ever foremost in the fight. The sight was one to inspire 
them with decision. Hesitating no longer to advance, they wheeled 
round to resume their march ; deeming it better to meet sufferings and 
endure even death itself than trample under foot their devoted and 
patriot leader. Their hearts recoiled from such an outrage. But for 
such as have named the name of Christ not to depart from iniquity, for 
such as have enlisted under his banner to go back to the world, for such 
as have renounced sin to return to its pleasures, involves a greater crime. 
A more touching spectacle bars our return. Jesus, as it were, lays him- 
self down on our path ; nor can any become backsliders, and return to 
the practice and pleasures of sin without treading him under their feet. 
These, Paul's very words, call up a spectacle from which every lover of 
Jesus should recoil with horror: ''If he," says that apostle, "who 
despised Moses' law died without mercy, of how much sorer punish- 
ment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under- 
foot the Son of God ?" 



SINNERS. 173 

SINNERS. 

1. Condition of the Alarmed Sinner. 

(476.) The condition of an awakened and alarmed sinner resembles 
that of the shedder of blood to whom the cities of refuge in the land of 
Israel offered protection from the sword of the avenger. Patent roads 
led to these ; and how were they travelled by him who, throwing fear- 
ful glances over his shoulder, descried the form of the avenger, saw the 
gleam of the naked sword, and by-and-bye, as the other gained on him, 
heard the panting of his breath and the tread of his foot ? Many a 
lovely flower grew by the road-side, but none did he pause to gather ; 
many a friend was met, but none did he pause to salute ; the hill is 
steep, but he stoutly breasts it ; the road is rough, but he presses its 
flints beneath his bleeding feet ; nor draws breath, nor pauses, nor hesi- 
tates, till, approaching the blessed boundary, he gathers up his remain- 
ing strength into one great effort and leaps across the line, to fall on the 
ground fainting, but saved. Did men thus toil, endure, run, fly for life 
— with this life in jeopardy ? Then what should be their decision of 
character, what their promptitude of action, what their strong, earnest 
crying of prayer, who, having Christ to seek, pardon to obtain, souls to 
be saved, eternal life to win, have a far greater work to do — the time 
allotted them to do it in often very short, and always very uncertain. 

2. All Have Sinned. 

(477.) We cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that we have all sinned 
times and ways without number. Whose conscience does not condemn 
him as a debtor to the law of God ? Who boasts, my hands are clean, 
my heart is pure ? The one redeeming feature in that Sanhedrim of 
sanctimonious hypocrites where Jesus stands facing the guilty woman, 
is that, when he says, " Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at 
her," a sense of guilt paralyzes every arm — they retreat, and she goes 
scatheless. To say that we have not sinned, is, in fact, to sin in saying 
it ; for we make God a liar, and our mouth proves us perverse. We 
have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God. 

3. A Sinner's Duty and Prayer. 

(478.) And as I have seen a man when the wave, bearing the boat on 
its foaming crest, brought it up to the ship's side, seize the happy 
moment and with one great bound leap in, so should sinners, perilously 
hanging on the brink of perdition, seize the opportunity to be saved. 
Willing and eager to save, Christ stretches out his arms tn receive us. 



174 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

Let us throw ourselves on his mercy, crying, Save now, Lord — Lord, 
save me, I perish ! 

4. Insensibility of the Sinner. 

(4*79.) The misery of the sinner is not to know his misery. I offer 
a man the bread of life, and he tells me that he is not hungry ; living 
water, and he puts aside the cup, saying, I am not thirsty ; I find him 
stricken down with a mortal disease, but, on bringing a physician to his 
bedside, he bids us go, and not disturb him, but leave him to sleep, 
for he feels no pain. Insensibility to pain is his worst symptom, fatal 
proof that mortification has begun, and that, unless it can be arrested, 
all is over — you may go, make his coffin, and dig him a grave. But let 
sensibility return, so that on pressure being applied to the seat of disease, 
he shrinks and shrieks out with pain ; alarmed and ignorant, his attend- 
ants may imagine that now his last hour is come, but the man of skill 
knows better. There is life in that cry — it proves that the tide has 
turned, that he shall live. Sign as blessed, when brought to a sense of 
his sins, a man feels himself perishing ; cries with Peter, sinking among 
the waves of Galilee, I perish ; with the prodigal, sitting by the swine- 
troughs, I perish ; with the jailer at midnight in the prison, What shall 
I do to be saved ? 

5. The Sinner Beside Himself. 

(480.) Transport yourself to such scenes as Hogarth painted. Here 
is a man in a damp, dark cell, seated on a heap of straw, and chained 
like a wild beast to the wall. Does he weep ? Is he haunted by recol- 
lections of a happy home ? Does he, as you look through the bars, en- 
treat you to take pity on him, to loose his fetters, and let him go free ? 
No. He smiles, sings, laughs — the straw is a throne ; this bare cell, a 
palace ; these rough keepers, obsequious courtiers ; and he himself, a 
monarch, the happiest of mortals ; an object of envy to crowned kings. 
Strange and sad delusion ! Yet, is that man not more beside himself 
who, with a soul formed for the purest enjoyments, delights in the 
lowest pleasures ; who, content with this poor world, rejects the heaven 
in his offer ; who, surest sign of insanity, hates in a heavenly Father and 
his Saviour, those who love him ; who, in love with sin, hugs his chains ; 
lying under the wrath of God, is merry ; sings, and dances on the thin 
crust that, ever and anon breaking beneath the feet of others, is all that 
separates him from an abyss of fire ? 

6. Sure Help for the Sinner. 

(481.) I knew of one who, while wandering along a lonely and rocky 
shore at the ebb of tide, slipped his foot into a narrow crevice. Fancy 



SINNERS. 175 

his horror on finding that he could not withdraw the imprisoned limb ! 
Dreadful predicament ! There he sat, with his back to the shore, and 
his face to the sea. Above his head sea-weed and shells hung upon the 
crag — the too sure signs that when yonder turning tide comes in, it shall 
rise on him inch by inch, till it washes over his head. Did he cry for 
help ? Does any man dream of asking such a question ? None heard 
him. But, oh, how he shouted to the distant boat ! how his heart sank 
as her yards swung round, and she went off on the other tack ! how his 
cries sounded high above the roar of breakers ! how bitterly he envied the 
white seamew her wing, as, wondering at this intruder on her lone 
domains, she sailed above his head, and shrieked back his shriek ! how, 
hopeless of help from man, he turned up his face to heaven, and cried 
loud and long to God ! All that God only knows. But as sure as 
there was a terrific struggle, so sure, while he watched the waters rising 
inch by inch, these cries never ceased till the wave swelled up, and 
washing the dying prayer from his lips broke over his head with a 
melancholy moan. There was no help for him. There is help for us, 
although fixed in sin as fast as that man in the rock. 

7. Conscience Condemns us as Guilty. 

(482.) The bar here is one at which, some time or other, we all have 
stood ; and where, without regard to rank or office, kings and priests, 
and purest women, as well as the lowest criminals, have been tried. 
This court holds its sittings within our bosoms — the presiding judge, 
God's vicegerent, is conscience — the law is the statutes of Heaven — and 
each man, turning king's evidence, bears witness against himself. And 
though in a sense man himself here constitutes the whole court — being 
at once prosecutor, witness, judge, and jury, and the trial is conducted 
under circumstances not favorable to an impartial decision — yet in every 
case the verdict is, and must be, guilty. 

8. The Blood of Christ Avails for the Greatest Sinners. 

(483.) It is impossible to set too high a value on the blood of Christ. 
It cleanseth from all sin, and it only cleanseth from any. Washed in it 
the greatest sinner shall be saved ; without it, the least of sinners must 
be lost. To a poor guilty man, suffering the stings of conscience and 
standing in terror of death and the judgment, it is better than gold, yea, 
than much fine gold ; the pearl of great price, which he would sell all, 
and, were he possessed of a thousand worlds, would part with them all 
to buy. 

9. One Way in which the Wicked Serve God. 

(484.) Though unbelievers and the wicked are after a fashion serving 
God, it is as the rod which a kind father reluctantly uses to chasten his 



176 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

son, and which, when it has answered its purpose, he breaks in two, and 
■casts into the fire. Do you, for instance, injure a godly man ? God is 
using you to train up his child in the grace of patience. Do you de- 
fraud him ? God is using you to detach his heart from the world, and 
to loosen the roots that bind his affections to the earth. Do you de- 
ceive him ? God is using you to teach him not to put his trust in 
princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. Do you 
wound his feelings ? You are a knife in God's hand to let the sap flow 
more freely in a bark-bound tree, or to prune its branches that it may 
bring forth more fruit. Messenger of Satan ! dost thou buffet an 
apostle ? God uses thee to keep him humble, and to teach him to wear 
his honors meekly. Oppressor of the church ! dost thou cast an apostle 
into prison ? God uses thee, thy dungeon, and thy chains, to show how 
he will answer prayer, and bring his people eventually out of their 
sorest troubles — saving, as he saved Peter, at the very uttermost. 



SYMPATHY. 

1. The Strong Fellow- Feeling of Human Hearts. 

(485.) Though the lower animals have feeling, they have no fellow- 
feeling. Have not I seen the horse enjoy his feed of corn, when his 
yoke-fellow lay dying in the neighboring stall, and never turn an eye of 
pity on the sufferer ? They have strong passions, but no sympathy. It 
is said that the wounded deer sheds tears ; but it belongs to man only 
to " weep with them that weep," and by sympathy to divide another's 
sorrow and double another's joys. When thunder, following the daz- 
zling flash, has burst among our hills, when the horn of the Switzer has 
rung in his glorious valleys, when the boatman has shouted from the 
bosom of a rock-girt loch, wonderful were the echoes I have heard them 
make ; but there is no echo so fine or wonderful as that which, in the 
sympathy of human hearts, repeats the cry of another's sorrow, and makes 
me feel his pain almost as if it were my own. They say that if a piano 
is struck in a room where another stands unopened and untouched, who 
lays his ear to that will hear a string within, as if touched by the hand 
of a shadowy spirit, sound the same note. But more strange how the 
strings of one heart vibrate to those of another ; how woe wakens woe ; 
how young grief infects me with sadness ; how the shadow of a passing 
funeral and nodding hearse casts a cloud on the mirth of a marriage 
party ; how sympathy may be so delicate and acute as to become a pain. 
There is, for example, the well-authenticated case of a lady who could 
not even hear the description of a severe surgical operation, but she felt 



TEMPER. 177 

all the agonies of the patient ; grew paler and paler, and shrieked, and 
fainted away under the horrible imagination. Not fancy ; for the dog 
has that, and, asleep on the warm hearth, he dreams of battles and of 
hunts : not reason, for there is an intelligence in his honest eye, and a 
skill in his tasks, that at least apes and imitates the intellect of man — it 
is not these, but fellow-feeling, which elevates our race above the unim- 
mortal brute, and brings us near to Him whose sympathy is our chief 
comfort in sorrow, and of whom we are assured — thank God in life's 
dark hour for the assurance — that " in all His people's affliction He is 
Himself afflicted. ' ' 



TEMPERANCE. 
1. Abstinence from Intoxicating Drinks. 

(486.) Have I not seen many, whose spring budded with the fairest 
promises, live to be a shame, and sorrow, and deep disgrace ? And, 
though it were revealed from heaven that you yourself should never fall, is 
there nothing due to others ? Does not that bloody cross, with its 
blessed victims, call upon every Christian to live not to himself, but to 
think of other's things, as well as of his own ? Every man must judge 
for himself ; to his own master he standeth or he falleth. But when I 
think of all the beggary, and misery, and shame, and crime, and sorrow, 
of which drunkenness is the prolific mother, of the many hearts it breaks, 
■of the happy homes it curses, of the precious souls it ruins, I do not 
hesitate to say that the question of abstinence deserves the prayerful 
consideration of every man ; and that, moreover, he appears to me to 
consult most the glory of God, the honor of Jesus, and the best interests 
of his fellow-men, who applies to all intoxicating stimulants the Apos- 
tolic rule, Touch not, taste not, handle not. In regard to no sin can it 
be so truly said that our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh 
about seeking whom he may devour. 



TEMPER. 

1. The Unhappg Temper of Some Pious Men. 

(487. ) The good temper for which some take credit, may be the result 
of good health and a well-developed frame* — a physical more than a moral 
-virtue ; and an ill temper, springing from bad health, or an imperfect 
organization, may be a physical rather than a moral defect — giving its 
victim a claim on our charity and forbearance. But, admitting this 



ITS GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

apology for the unhappy tone and temper of some pious men, the true 
Christian will bitterly bewail his defect, and, regretting his infirmity 
more than others do a deformity, he will carefully guard and earnestly 
pray against it. Considering it as a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of 
Satan sent to buffet him, it will often send him to his knees in prayer to 
God, that the grace which conquers nature may be made ' ' sufficient for 
him." 



TEMPTATION. 

1. Sudden Temptation Overcoming the Christian. 

(488.) When he that sitteth upon the flood, and turneth the hearts of 
men like the rivers of water, hath sent the current of our tastes and 
feelings in a new direction, how apt are they, especially in some outburst 
of sudden temptation that comes down like a thunder-spout, to flow back 
into the old and deep-worn channels of a corrupt nature ! Of this, David 
and Peter are memorable and dreadful examples. And who, that has 
endeavored to keep his heart with diligence, has not felt, and mourned 
over the tendency to be working out a righteousness of his own, to be 
pleased with himself, and, by taking some satisfaction in his own merits, 
to undervalue those of Christ. 

2. Stand in Fear of Temptation. 

(489.) Never fear to suffer ; but oh ! fear to sin. Stand in awe of 
God, and in fear of temptation. " Watch and pray, that ye enter not 
into temptation." It is not safe to bring gunpowder within reach even 
of a spark. Nor safe, however dexterous your driving, to shave with 
your wheels the edge of a beetling precipice. Nor safe in the best-built 
bark that ever rode the waves, to sail on the rim of a roaring whirlpool. 
The seed of the woman has, indeed, bruised the head of the serpent ; 
yet beware ! the reptile is not dead. It is dangerous to handle an adder, 
or approach its poison fangs, if the creature is alive, even although its 
head be crushed. 

3. Yielding to Temptation on Small Occasions. 

(490.) How often have Christ's people found it easier to withstand on 
great occasions than on small ones ! Those will yield to some soft seduc- 
tion, and fall into sin, who, put to it, might stand up for the cause of 
truth and righteousness as bravely as he who, in yonder palace, stands 
like a rock before the king. Commanded to do what lays Christ's crown 
at Caesar's feet, he refuses. It is a thing which, though ready to dare 



■ UNIFORMITY. 179 

death, he dare not, and he will not do. He offers his neck, but refuses 
that — addressing himself in some such words as these to the imperious 
monarch : " There are two kingdoms and two kings in Scotland ; there 
is King Jesus and King James ; and when thou wast a babe in swaddling- 
clothes, Jesus reigned in this land, and his authority is supreme." 

(491.) Would to God that we had, whenever we are tempted to com- 
mit sin, as true a regard for Christ's paramount authority ! 



UNIFORMITY. 

1. Unnatural Attempts at Uniformity. 

(492.) It was the misfortune of Europe that Charles V. did not learn 
at an early period of his life the lesson which he was afterward taught 
in a Spanish cloister. It had saved him much treasure, the world much 
bloodshed, and his soul much sin. After vainly attempting to quench 
the light of the Reformation, and make all men think alike, this great 
monarch, resigning his crown, retired to a monastery. Wearied, 
perhaps, with the dull round of mechanical devotions, he betook him- 
self, in the mechanical arts, to something more congenial to his active 
mind. After long and repeated efforts, he found that he could not 
make two timepieces go alike, two machines, that had neither mind nor 
will, move in perfect harmony. Whereupon, it is said, he uttered this 
memorable reflection, What a fool was I to attempt to make all men 
think alike ! Unfortunately for the peace of the church and for the 
interests of Christian charity, Charles the king has had more followers 
than Charles the philosopher. 

2. Uniformity is but the Shadoio of Unity. 

(493.) Unity with variety is God's law in the kingdom of nature ; 
and why should not his law in the kingdom of grace be unity of spirit 
with variety of forms ? Uniformity is but the shadow of unity ; and 
how often have churches, in vain attempts after the first, lost the second 
— like the dog in the fable lost both ? 

3. An Uninteresting Uniformity Foreign to Nature. 

(494.) God, while he preserves unity, delights in variety. A dull, 
dreary, uninteresting uniformity is quite foreign to nature. Look at 
the trees of the forest ! all presenting the same grand features, what 
variety in their forms ! Some, standing erect, wear a proud and lofty 
air ; some, modest-like, grow lowly and seek the shade ; some, like 



180 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION'. 

grief, hang the head and have weeping branches ; some, like aspiring 
and unscrupulous ambition, climb up by means of others, killing what 
they climb by ; while some, rising straight and tall, with branches all 
pointing upward, present in their tapering forms emblems of the piety 
that spurns the ground and seeks the skies. Or look at the flowers, 
what variety of gay colors in a meadow ! Or look at mankind, what 
variety of expression in human faces, of tones in human voices ! There 
are no two faces alike, no two flowers alike, no two leaves alike, I 
believe no two grains of sand alike. In that variety God manifests his 
exhaustless resources, and. nature possesses one of her most attractive 
charms. And why insist on all men observing a uniform style of 
worship, or thinking alike on matters that are not essential to salvation ? 
You might as well insist on all men wearing the same expression of face, 
or speaking in the same tone of voice ; for I believe that there are as 
great natural and constitutional differences in the minds as in the bodies 
of men. 



VICE. 

1. What a Life of Vice Resembles. 

(495.) A life of vice resembles those petrifying wells which turn into 
stone whatever is immersed in them, fairest flowers or finest fruit. The 
ravages of the worst diseases which vice engenders in the body present 
a loathsome, but yet a feeble image of the wreck it works on the 
noblest features of the soul. 

2. Vice Becomes a Punishment and a Torment. 

(496.) It is the curse of vice, that, where its desires outlive the power 
of gratification, or are denied the opportunity of indulgence, they 
become a punishment and a torment. Denied all opportunity of 
indulgence, what would a drunkard do in heaven ? Or a glutton ?' Or 
a voluptuary ? Or an ambitious man ? Or a worldling ? one whose soul 
lies buried in a heap of gold ? Or she who, neglecting quite as much 
the noble purposes of her being, flits, life through, a painted butterfly, 
from flower to flower of pleasure, and wastes the day of grace in the 
idolatry and adornment of a form which death shall change into utter 
loathsomeness, and the grave into a heap of dust ? These would hear 
no sounds of ecstasy, would see no brightness, would smell no perfumes, 
in paradise. But, weeping and wringing their hands, they would 
wander up and down the golden streets to bewail their death, crying — 
" The days have come in which we have no pleasure in them." 



WORLD, THE. 181 

WORLD, THE. 

1. Getting Sick of the World. 

(497.) As in Roman Catholic countries, many a cowled monk, and 
many a veiled nun, enters convent or monastery more from feelings of 
disappointment than devotion ; so, when hopes are blasted, and pride is 
mortified, and ambition has missed her mark, you may get sick of the 
world. Alas ! all who bid adieu to the ball-room and theatre, and 
giddy round of fashion, do not leave the circle of their enchantments 
for the closet, for the sanctuary, for fields of Christian benevolence. 



2. Why the World is Preserved. 

(498.) To save our lost race, God did not spare his own Son. For 
that end he gave up his Son to death, and the Son gave up himself. 
And why does God at this moment tolerate the flagrant crimes and 
wickedness of earth ? Why sleep the fires of Sodom ? Where arc the 
waters of the avenging deluge ? In preserving the world from de- 
struction, in sending summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, in 
raising up one nation and casting down another, in directing and over- 
ruling all sublunary events from the fall of kingdoms to the fall of a 
sparrow, God has one purpose. It is that wdiich angels have come down 
from heaven to help and devils have come up raging from hell to hinder 
- — the salvation of sinners and ingathering of his chosen people. For 
their sake he spares his enemies ; the tares for the wheat ; Sodom for 
the Lots within its walls ; nor till the last of these has left them, shall 
the City of Destruction be ready for burning. 



3. The World should be Turned Upside Down. 

(499.) The world requires to be turned upside down. Like a boat 
capsized in a squall, and floating keel uppermost in the sea, with men 
drowning around it, the world has been turned upside down already ; and 
to be set right, it must just be turned upside down again. If the order 
which God established has been reversed by sin — if in our hearts and 
habits time has assumed the place of eternity — the body of the soul — 
earth of heaven, and self of God ; — if that is first which should be last, 
and that last which should be first, — if that is uppermost which should 
be undermost, and that undermost which should be uppermost, then 
happy the homes and the hearts of which, in reference to the entrance 
of God's Word, Spirit, and converting grace, it can be said, "These 
that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also." 



182 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

WORLD, THE (EARTH). 

1. A Grand Destiny Awaits the World. 

(500.) A grand destiny awaits this world of sins and sorrows. This 
earth, purified by judgment fires, shall be the home of the blessed. The 
curse of briars and thorns shall pass away with sin. " Instead of the 
thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up 
the myrtle-tree." Of the thorns of that curse Jesus' crown was woven, 
and he bore it off upon his head. Under laws accommodated to the 
new economy, the wide Avorld shall become one Eden, where, exempt 
from physical as well as moral evils, none shall shiver amid arctic frosts, 
nor wither under tropic heat ; these fields of snow and arid sands shall 
blossom all with roses. From the convulsions of expiring — or rather 
the birth-pangs of parturient nature — a new-born world shall come, a 
home worthy of immortals, a palace befitting its King. The blood that 
on Calvary dyed earth's soil shall bless it, and this theatre of Satan's 
triumph, and of a Saviour's shame, shall be the seat of Jesus' kingdom, 
and the witness of his glory. 



WORKS OF GOD. 

1. God's Works Reveal His Power. 

(501.) An Arab, a wild son of the desert, one more accustomed to 
fight than to reason, to plunder a caravan than to argue a cause, was 
asked by a traveller how he knew that there was a God. He fixed his 
dark eyes with a stare of savage wonder on the man who seemed to doubt 
the being of God ; and then, as he was wont, when he encountered a 
foe to answer spear with spear, he met that question with another, 
" How do I know whether it was a man or a camel that passed my tent 
last night ?" Well spoken, child of the desert ! for not more plainly do 
footprints ou the sand reveal to the eye whether it was a man or camel 
that passed thy tent in the darkness of the night, than God's works 
reveal his being and power. They testify of him. His power has left 
its footprint impressed upon them all. 

2. Unapproachable Excellence in God's Works. 

(502.) The more closely the works of God are examined, the higher 
our admiration rises, and the less Ave fear that true science will ever 
appear as the antagonist, and not the ally of the faith. Whether we 
turn the telescope on heavens, studded so full of stars as to present the 
appearance of gold-dust scattered with lavish hand on a dark purple 



WOMAN. 183 

ground, or turn the microscope on such comparatively humble objects 
as a plant of moss, a drop of ditch water, the scaly armor of a 
beetle, a spider's eye, the down of a feather, or the dust on a butterfly's 
wing, such divine beauty, wisdom and glory burst into view, that child- 
hood's roving mind is instantly arrested ; the dullest are moved to 
wonder, the most grovelling souls take wing and rise up to God. 

3. God's Works Infinitely Sur])ass Man's. 

(503.) The British Museum possesses in the Portland Vase one of 
the finest remains of ancient art ; and it may be remembered how — 
some years ago — the world of taste was shocked to hear that this precious 
relic had been shattered by a maniac's hand. Without disparaging- 
classic taste or this exquisite example of it, I venture to say that there 
is not a poor worm which we tread upon, nor a sere leaf, that, like a 
ruined but reckless man, dances merrily in its fallen state to the antumn 
winds, but has superior claims upon our study and admiration. The 
child who plucks a lily or rose to pieces, or crushes the fragile form of 
a fluttering insect, destroys a work which the highest art could not in- 
vent, nor man's best skilled hand construct. And there was not a leaf 
quivered on the trees which stood under the domes of the crystal palace, 
but eclipsed the brightest glories of loom or chisel ; it had no rival 
among the triumphs of invention, which a world went there to see. Yes ; 
in his humblest works, God infinitely surpasses the highest efforts of 
created skill. 



WOMAN. 

1. More Religion Among Women than Men. 

(504.) Furnished with clasping tendrils, and strong by the attach- 
ments which they form, the woodbine and ivy wind their arms round 
the tree, embrace it closely, and rising to its lofty boughs, and clinging 
to its rough bark, they give ornament and beauty — a vesture of soft 
green spangled with flowers — in return for the support they get. Like 
these, woman, with her strong and warm affections — gentle, loving, con- 
fiding — is prone to attach herself to a nature stronger than her own, and 
to lean on it for support. And, whether it be that she is from this 
peculiar disposition less opposed to the faith which looks to another's 
righteousness and leans on another's strength, certain it is there is more 
religion among women than men. 



184 GEMS OF ILLUSTRATION. 

2. Holy Heroism of Christian Women. 

(505.) Both before and since the days when they ministered to our 
Lord, and, followed him to Calvary with their tears, were the last at the 
cross and the first at the sepulchre, the Church has exhibited many in- 
stances of high and holy heroism on the part of women. However de- 
serving of the name in ordinary circumstances where martyrs' fires were 
fiercely burning, and scaffolds flowed with blood, and prisons overflowed 
with captives, women Lave not shown themselves to be the " weaker 
sex." On the contrary, when adherence to principle involved painful 
sacrifices, men have found such support in gentle women as I have seen 
the green and pliant ivy lend the wall it clothed and clung to, when that, 
undermined or shaken, was ready to fall. Daughters of Eve, but no 
tools of the tempter to seduce, with a babe at their breast and others at 
their knee, they have encouraged man to withstand temptation, and 
boldly face the storm, counting rank, home, living, and all things else, 
but loss for Christ. Such was the spirit of Hannah. 

3. Religion Owes Most to Woman. 

(506.) If, on account of the elevation and high position which it has 
given her in Christian countries, woman owes most to religion, religion 
in turn owes most to her. You tell me that "by woman came sin"? 
I know it ; but I set off this against the fact — by woman came the 
Saviour. Jesus was a virgin's child. And, more than that, in those 
days when he walked this world, women were his trustiest, kindest 
friends. Whoever betrayed, denied, deserted him — they never did. 
The nearest to his cross, and earliest at his sepulchre, they were faith- 
ful when others were faithless, and gave early promise of that devoted- 
ness to his cause, which their sex in all ages have honorably and pre- 
eminently displayed. 

4. Woman Owes Much to the Humanizing Influences of Christianity . 

(507.) Not long years ago you might have seen a pile of wood on the 
banks of the Ganges, surrounded by a mighty throng. The crowd 
opens, and up through the vista a lifeless body is carried to be laid on 
the summit of that funeral pile. Again the crowd opens, and, like a 
wave in the wake of a ship, it closes behind a woman, the dead man's 
widow, who comes to share his fiery bed. Attired for the sacrifice, on 
taking farewell of children and friends, she lies down by the corpse. 
As she embraces it in her arms the signal is given, and the pile is lighted ; 
and, though in some instances, mad with agony, and all on fire, the 
victim would leap for life through the flames and smoke, commonlv, 



WOMAN. 185 

while her piercing shrieks were drowned in shouts, the poor widow 
submitted with patience to her fate. She submitted to it, very much 
to escape a worse one. These funeral piles throw a lurid glare on the 
wretched state of widows in that heathen land ; and, though not doomed 
in all other lands to > so hard a fate, oppression and cruelty was the 
common lot of a class than which there is none that owes more to the 
humanizing influences of Christianity. I suppose there are few of us 
but, among competing claimants on our pity, time, money, help, would, 
whether she were a cmeen or beggar, give the preference to one in a 
widow's garb. Here we see the benign influence of the Gospel, and 
God fulfilling his words — " Let thy widows trust in me." 



INDEX. 



ACTIVITY, CHEISTIAN. 

1. All Christians to be co-workers 

with God, 1. 

2. To whom the working Christian 

allies himself, 2. 

3. Work our main vocation, 3. 

4. A characteristic of the true Chris- 

tian, 4. 

5. All the members of the body 

formed for work, 5. 

6. The men of worth, the men of 

work, 6. 

7. A useful and holy life is the only 

life of well-doing, 7. 

8. Praying and working for others, 



AFFLICTIONS. 

1 . Troubles turned to blessings, 9. 

2. Those who are without chastise- 

ment, 10. 

3. No plain sailing to heaven, 11. 

4. Afflictions cannot remove sin, 12. 

5. Unsanctified afflictions, 13. 

6. Effect of overwhelming trials, 14. 

7. Afflictions are of short duration, 

15. 

8. Trials purify God's people, 16. 

9. Christians bend to the storm, not 

resist it, 17. 
10. Patient endurance of trials, 18, 19. 

AMBITION. 

1. A holy ambition, 20. 

ATHEISM. 

1. The atheist's avowed belief, 21. 

2. A crushing answer, 22. 

3. Disbelief in the existence of athe- 

ism, 23. 

4. The atheistic poet on the iEgean 

Sea, 24. 



BEAUTY. 

1. Personal beauty, 25. 

2. No sin in beauty, 26. 

3. Beauty a good gift of God, 27. 

BENEVOLENCE. 

1. Playing at benevolence, 28. 

2. Wide reach of benevolence, 29. 

BIBLE, THE. 

1. The Bible adapted to all classes, 

30. 

2. The Bible as a subject of study, 

31. 

3. Something in the Bible for every 

person, 32. 

4. Treasures of the Bible, 33. 

5. Fanciful resemblances seen in the 

Bible, 34. 

6. The benefits of studying the 

models of piety and virtue found 
in the Bible, 35. 

7. Facts in natural history corrobo- 

rating the testimony of Scripture, 
36. 

BODY, THE. 

1. The Christian's body a nobler tem- 

ple than Solomon's, 37. 

2. A shrine of immortality, 38. 

CALUMNY. 

1. How to treat calumny, 39. 

CHRISTIANS. 

1. Narrow-minded Christians, 40. 

2. Despondent Christians, 41. 

3. The emblems of God's people, 42. 

4. Christian ends lend grandeur to 

the Christian life, 43, 44. 

5. Christians are not what they must 

aim to be, 45. 



1SS 



INDEX. 



6. Christians should follow Jesus, 46. 

7. The common brotherhood of 

Christians, 47. 

8. Safe in Christ, 48. 

9. How to distinguish the godly from 

the ungodly, 49. 

10. Unfruitful professors, 50. 

11. Christians shine with a borrowed 

light, 51. 

12. Not easy to be a Christian, 52. 

13. Christians who are beautiful 

epistles, 53. 

14. Christian brotherhood, 54. 

15. No man starts uj) a finished Chris- 

tian, 55. 

16. The benefits of Christian compan- 

ionship, 56, 57, 58. 

CHURCH. 

1. Of whom the members of the true 

church consist, 59. 

2. The marriage tie between the 

Lamb and his Bride indissoluble, 
60. 

3. The Church of Christ not identi- 

fied with forms, 61. 

4. Christ's body not identical with 

any one church, 62, 63. 

COMMANDMENTS. 

1. Ten Commandments obeyed and 
enforced by Jesus, 64, 65. 

CONVERSION. 

1. Agitations which accompany con- 

version, 66. 

2. The greatest of all changes, 67. 

3. Has its origin in the heart, 68. 

4. On the time and circumstances of 

conversion, 69, 70. 

5. The wonderful change, 71. 

6. The wondrous change from nature 

to grace, 72. 

7. Conversion is a resurrection, 73. 

8. A revolution, 74. 

9. A new spirit given in conversion, 

75. 

10. Our part in conversion, 76. 

11. The joy of the newly converted, 

77. 



12. God converts his bitterest enemies 

into his warmest friends, 78, 79. 

13. The wishes of the converted ac- 

commodated to their wants, 80. 

14. A fiery firmament hangs over the 

unconverted, 81. 

CONVICTION. 

1. Conviction the first work of the 

Spirit, 82. 

2. Conviction stifled by sinful 

pleasures, 83. 

CROSS OF CHRIST. 

1. Necessity of clinging to the cross, 

84. 

2. We should gaze on Calvary as well 

as Eden, 85. 

3. The robe of righteousness woven 

there, 86. 

4. No dead sovds lie at the cross, 87. 

5. Christ deserted at the cross, 88. 

6. Christ's cross and crown are in- 

separable, 89. 

DEATH. 

1. The timid believer's death, 90. 

2. Death an immediate gain to the 

Christian, 91. 

3. A hard fight at death, 92. 

4. The dying Christian, 93. 

5. Footprints of death, 94. 

6. It is well for some people to view 

death, 95. 

7. Preparation for death, 96. 

8. Death of Christ, 97 

9. Death of saints, 98, 99. 

10. A glorious sunset of a stormy day, 
100. 

DECISION. 

1. Decision of the old Romans, 101, 
102. 

DIFFERENCES. 

1. Differences of Christians, 103. 

2. Unworthy passions keep true 

Christians apart, 104. 

3. Tendency to run into extremes, 

105. 



INDEX. 



189 



DIFFICULTIES. 

1. Eminent men nursed amid diffi- 
culties, 106. 

DOCTRINES. 

1. No formal arrangement of doc- 

trines in the word of God, 107. 

2. The harmony of the doctrines of 

the Bible, 108. 

ENERGY. 

1. The great difference between men, 

109. 

2. Energy causes success, 110. 

ENVY. 

1. Envy is a base passion, 111. 

EQUALITY. 

1. Nature's inequalities, 112. 

2. The only attainable equality, 113. 

ERROR. 
1. Too much zeal in putting down 
error, 114. 

ETERNITY. 

1. Eternity opens men's eyes, 115. 

FAITH. 

1. Dead faith, 116. 

2. Our Saviour's pattern of faith, 117. 

3. Faith the believer's mainstay, 118. 

4. Want of faith in our Lord's com- 

mands, 119. 

5. Faith the motto on the banner, 

120. 

6. The all - comprehensive answer, 

121. 

7. Fretting and trusting, 122. 

8. Abraham's great faith, 123, 124. 

FALL, THE. 

1. Speculations on the fall, 125. 

2. Idolatry proclaims the fall, 126. 

3. Emblem of man's fallen state, 127. 

4. Man has made himself what he is, 

128. 

5. Nature, society, and the world 

proclaim that man has fallen, 
129. 



6. Aristotle is but the ruins of an 
Adam, 130, 131. 

FIDELITY. 

1. Remarkable example of fidelity, 
132. 

FORGIVENESS OF OTHERS. 

1. Forgiveness of enemies, 133. 

2. A forgiving man the finest image 

of the Savioiir, 134. 

3. We are to forgive with our spirit, 

135. 

4. Christianity embraces the bitter- 

est foe, 136. 

5. Forgiveness is not a virtue which 

belongs to our fallen natures, 
137. 

6. A forgiving spirit the truest image 

of God, 138. 

FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 
1. God's full forgiveness, 139. 



FORMS. 

1. Forms the drapery of religion, 140. 

2. Multiplicity of forms of worship 

an evil, 141. 

GLORY OF GOD. 

1. Doing all to the glory of God, 142. 

2. To glorify God the chief end of 

man, 143. 

3. Life in all its phases may be spent 

to God's glory, 144. 

4. The earth is full of the glory of 

God, 145. 

5. Two ways by which God glorifies 

His name, 146. 

GOD. 

1. God's forbearance toward sinners. 

147. 

2. Nothing difficult to God, 148. 

3. Cannot shake off the presence of 

God, 149. 

4. A pitying father, 150. 

5. All things praise God, 151. 

6. A refuge for his people, 152. 

7. Dwells in light inaccessible, 153. 

8. Love should always be included 

in a definition of God, 154. 



190 



INDEX. 



GODLINESS. 

1. Godliness profitable unto all 
things, 155. 

GOOD WOEKS. 

1. Abuse of the doctrine of, 156. 

2. A disrespectful treatment of, 157. 

3. St. Paul's estimate of, 158. 

4. No time for doing good, 159. 

5. Cannot earn salvation by our 

works, 160. 

6. A pestilent heresy, 161. 

7. No true faith without works, 162. 

8. God does not forget our good 

works, 163. 

GOSPEL, THE. 

1. The gospel a stream of mercy, 164. 

2. The effects of the gospel, 165. 

3. Mysteries of the gospel, 166. 

4. Love the curative element of the 

gospel, 167. 

5. Suited to and will prevail in all 

lands, 168. 

6. The gospel should be examined 

in the broad shadows of the old 
economy, 169, 170. 

GEACE. 

1. Grace gives a holy bent, 171. 

2. Salvation by grace humbling but 

encouraging, 172. 

3. The affluence of God's grace, 173, 

174. 

4. Assimilating element of grace, 

175. 

5. Grace, though slow in progress, 

yet certain, 176. 

6. The life of the soul, 177. 

7. The all-sufficiency of grace, 178. 

8. God's grace exhausted, 179. 

9. Grace of God above circumstances, 

180. 
10. Glorious triumphs of grace, 181. 

HEAET, THE. 

1. Cultivation of the heart, 182. 

2. The heart the same in all men, 

183. 

3. The root of evil, 184. 

4. Coldness of the unrenewed heart, 

185. 



5. Deceitful above all things, 186, 

187, 188. 

6. Desperately wicked, 189. 

7. A new one necessary, 190. 

8. What the new heart explains, 

191. 

9. Delicate sensibility of the new 

heart, 192. 
10. An outward resembling an inward 
change, 193. 

HEATHEN, THE. 

1. Stupidity of the heathen, 194. 

2. Guilt of neglecting the heathen, 

195, 196, 197. 

HEAVEN. 

1. Heaven an abhorrent vacuum to 

the unsanctified, 198. 

2. The sinner out of place in heaven, 

199. 

3. Emblems of the New Jerusalem, 

200. 

4. The two bolts which bar the door 

of heaven, 201. 

5. Heaven greatly made up of little 

children, 202. 

6. We shall see Jesus there, 203. 

7. The wonder is that any get to 

heaven, 204, 205. 

8. Is obtained by heritage, 206. 

9. Honors of those who turn men to 

God, 207. 

10. The brightest honors of heaven, 

208. 

11. Our knowledge will be increased 

in heaven, 209. 

12. Pledges of heaven, 210. 

13. Who will be associated in heaven ? 

211. 

14. The sinner exasperated in heaven, 

212. 

15. A clear prospect of heaven, 213. 

16. His sinless home a wish of every 

Christian, 214. 

17. Hard work to get to heaven, 215. 

18. Strengthening ourselves with 

thoughts of heaven, 216. 

19. A type of the heavenly paradise, 

217. 



INDEX. 



191 



HELL. 

1. The trees shall burn that will not 

bear, 218. 

2. The pit an awful reality, 219. 

3. Longer in perdition the greater 

sinner, 220. 

4. God's voice of terror, 221. 

5. What the wrath of God is a key- 

to, 222. 

6. Play not with fire unquenchable, 

223. 

HOLY SPIEIT. 

1. Power of the Holy Spirit, 224. 

2. Mysterious work done by the 

Spirit of God at the hour of 
death, 225. 

3. God's people have the witness of 

the Spirit, 226. 

4. The gifts of, do not supersede our 

own efforts, 227. 

5. Improving his call, 228. 

6. The Spirit of God the moving 

power, 229. 

7. Special moving of the Spirit, 230. 

HUMILITY. 

1. Humility the root and strength of 

lofty piety, 231. 

2. The humbler in our own, the 

higher in God's eyes, 232. 

3. The holiest men have always 

been humble, 233. 

4. Humility of the sincere Christian, 

234. 

5. The saint grows in, as he grows 

in holiness, 235, 236. 

HYPOCEISY. 

1. The insinuation of general hypoc- 
risy, 237. 

IDLENESS. 
1. Idleness the mother of mischief, 



IGNORANCE. 

1. Man's ignorance, 239. 

IMMORTALITY. 

1. The heathen believe the soul sur- 
vives the death of the body, 240. 



INDUSTRY. 

1. The benefits of unwearied indus- 
try, 241. 

INFIDELITY. 

1. Defeats of infidelity, 242. 

INSTRUMENTS. 

1. Instruments chosen by God, 243. 

2. Man as the instrument of saving 

his fellow-men, 244. 

INVISIBLE THINGS. 

1. Visible and invisible things, 245. 

JESUS. 

1. The advent of Christ, 246, 247. 

2. Jesus should be all our desire, 248. 

3. We should go to Jesus just as we 

are, 249. 

4. Separate from sinners, 250. 

5. Sufferings of the Saviour, 251. 

6. Our Treasure, 252. 

7. Our Lord's lofty and holy life, 253. 

8. On looking to Jesus as a Saviour, 

254. 

9. The sinner's surety, 255. 

10. Holds the sceptre of universal 

empire, 256. 

11. The boundless grace of Christ, 257. 

12. A preacher of salvation, 258. 

13. Revealed truth proclaims Jesus 

Christ Lord of all, 259. 

14. Our ransom, 260. 

15. Emblems of Jesus, 261. 

16. Eternal obligation of the Christian 

to Christ, 262. 

17. Sacrifices for the sake of the doc- 

trine of Christ's headship, 263. 

18. Attractive relationships of Christ, 

264. 

19. Creator and Lord of all, 265. 

20. The one way, 266. 

21. Wears a costly crown, 267, 268, 

269, 270. 

22. How he became a king, 271. 

23. Better to be with Jesus, 272. 

24. A tender shepherd, 273. 

25. The author and finisher of our 

faith, 274. 



192 



INDEX. 



26. Proofs -which our Lord gave of 

his divinity, 275, 276. 

27. The love of Jesus for the sinner, 

277. 

28. Seeing Jesus as he is, 278. 

29. An abiding friend, 279. 

30. Jesus the only Mediator, 280. 

31. Jesus' name a word of resistless 

might when uttered by the 
Apostles, 281. 

JEW, THE. 

1. A living evidence of God's fulfil- 

ment of his word, 282. 

2. Intellectual character of the Jew, 

283. 

JUDGMENT, THE GENEEAL. 

1. God shall reward every man ac- 

cording to his -work, 284. 

2. Everything shall be brought into 

judgment, 2S5. 

3. The folly of man in not averting 

his fate, 286. 

JUDGMENT, MAN'S. 

1. Crouching before man's judgment, 

287. 

JUSTICE OF GOD. 

1. Justice of God glorified, 288. 

2. Justice and mercy combined in 

the work of redemption, 289. 

3. God's justice conspicuous in re- 

demption, 290. 

KINDNESS. 

1. Kindness a secret of success, 291. 

KINGDOM OF CHEIST. 

1. Rules of other kingdoms reversed 

in Christ's kingdom, 292. 

2. For the poor and humble, 293. 

3. An enduring one, 294. 

4. The true subjects of Christ's 

kingdom, 295. 

5. The divine right of Christ's king- 

ship, 296, 297. 

LAWS OF THE BIBLE. 
1. Criminal and civil laws of Moses, 
298. 



LAW, THE. 

1. The law is not the gate of life, 299. 

2. The law written upon the heart, 

300. 

3. The law magnified in Jesus' death, 

301. 

LOVE TO CHEIST. 

1. Love to Christ a strong passion, 

302. 

2. Love as strong as death, 303. 

3. The believer's motive power, 304. 

4. The Christian's great strength. 

305. 

5. Love to Christ overcoming the 

love to the world, 306. 

LOVE OF GOD. 

1. Cannot measure the paternal love 

of God, 307. 

2. God loves to the end, 308. 

3. Christ died for us because God 

loved us, 309. 

4. The love of God commended tow- 

ard us, 310. 

5. The love of God passes knowledge, 

311. 

6. God delights in love, 312. 

LOVE TOWARD GOD. 

1. Love to God should be inflamed, 

313. 

2. The love of God should replace 

the love of the world, 314. 

3. Man must love, 315. 

LOVE TO OTHEES. 

1. Taking a loving interest in the sal- 

vation of others, 316. 

2. Example of a fugitive slave, 317. 

3. A love that seeketh not its own. 

318. 

4. Expansive character of Christian 

love, 319. 

5. The discoverer of a fountain 

makes it known to others, 320. 

6. Loving efforts for the perishing. 

321. 

MAN. 
1. The worth and dignity of man, 
322. 



INDEX. 



l'J3 



2. Man's capacity and incapacity, ' 

323. 

3. Only two classes of men in God's . 

sight, 324. 

MARRIAGE. 

1. Unwise marriages, 325. 

2. The first marriage, 326. 

MEANS. 

1. Our confidence should not be in 

means, 327. 

2. Means impotent without God's 

blessing, 328. 

3. Unlikely means in nature, 329. 

4. "Which seem unfitted to the end, 

330. 

5. Our eyes and our hopes should be 

on God when using means, 331. 

6. God accomplishes great purposes 

by unlikely means, 332. 

MERCY OF GOD. 

1. Mercy without merit, 333. 

2. Indiscriminating mercy, 334. 

3. Pitying mercy, 335. 

4. The earth is full of God's mercy, 

336. 

5. Hope for the vilest in God's 

mercy, 337. 

6. Mercy baring her own bosom, 338. 

MIRACLES. 

1. Miracles not excluded by the facts 
of science, 339. 

NATURAL MAN. 

1. Fine specimens of the natural 

man, 340. 

2. The affections of the natural man, 

341. 

3. At enmity with God, 342. 

4. The eyes of our understanding 

are darkened, 343. 

5. Naturally amiable persons, 344. 

PARDON. 

1. None excepted from pardon, 345. 

2. The price of pardon, 346. 

3. The peace which springs from 

pardon, 347. 



PATIENCE OF GOD. 

1. God's patience not everlasting, 
348. 

PEACE. 

1. Heavenly peace, 349. 

PERSECUTION. 

1. Persecution turned into good, 350. 

2. The church strengthened by per- 

secution, 351. 

3. Persecution by the Greek and Ro- 

man churches, 352. 

PIETY. 

1. The most healthy is that which is 

the busiest, 353. 

2. Practical piety, 354. 

POOR, THE. 

1. Personally helping the poor, 355. 

POPERY. 

1. A formidable power, 356. 

PRAYER. 

1. Two limits to prayer, 357. 

2. God's answer anticipating his 

people's prayer, 358. 

3. No crying in vain, 359. 

4. Prayer without wishes, 360. 

5. The direct power of prayer, 361. 

6. Easy for God to supply our great- 

est wants, 362. 

7. God's answers to prayer corre- 

spond to our wants, 363. 

8. A resource that never fails, 364. 

9. Straitened in ourselves, 365. 

10. The gates of prayer not shut, 306. 

11. The test of prayer, 367. 

12. Every prayer falls distinctly on 

Jesus' ear, 368. 

13. A neglect of prayer is dangerous, 

369, 370. 

14. A man of prayer is a man of 

power, 371. 

PREACHERS AND PREACHING. 
1. The charms of Jesus' preaching, 
372. 



194: 



INDEX. 



2. The preacher feeling what he says, 

373. 

3. The fittest preacher, 374. 

4. The illustrative style of preaching, 

375. 

5. Tenderness of Jesus' preaching, 

376. 

6. Gratifying the imagination, 377. 

7. The life of preaching, 378. 

8. Unjust representations of God by 

some preachers, 379. 

9. Thinking too much of the preacher, 

380. 

10. The pulpit offers a man a grander 

position than a throne, 381. 

11. What comes from the heart goes 

to the heart, 382. 

12. Gentleness of the Apostles, 383. 

PKIDE. 

1. Spiritual pride, 385. 

2. Pride shuts out God, 386. 

3. Pride in dress, 387. 

4. A dreadful sin, 388. 

5. Prevalence of pride, 389. 

6. Peter's pride, 390. 

PROMISES. 

1. Surpassing value of the promises, 

384. 

PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 

1 The language of the seers of the 
Old Testament, 391. 

2. Lying calmly in the arms of Provi- 

dence, 392. 

PUNISHMENT. 

1. God is slow to punish, 393. 

2. Conscience approves the punish- 

ment, 394. 

3. Love demands the punishment of 

the impenitent, 395. 

4. God's unwillingness to punish 

seen in the case of the antedi- 
luvians, 396. 

REDEEMED, THE. 

1. The honor and glory of the re- 

deemed, 397. 

2. The great company of the re- 

deemed, 398. 



REDEMPTION. 

1. The design of infinite wisdom, 

399. 

2. The spectacle which redemption 

offers, 400. 

3. Spans an impassable gulf, 401. 

4. A work without a parallel, 402. 

5. The story of redeeming love, 403. 

6. The motive of God in redemption, 

404. 

REGENERATION. 

1. The purest need regeneration, 405. 

RELIGION. 

1. The world's great want, 406. 

2. True religion lies in the heart, 407. 

3. God requires more than a nega- 

tive, 408. 

REMORSE. 

1. The terrors of remorse, 409. 

RENEWAL. 

1. Renewal, not repair, 410. 

2. Renewal indispensable, 411. 

REPENTANCE. 

1. God rejoicing over repenting sin- 

ners, 412. 

2. Angels rejoicing over the repent- 

ance of a sinner, 413. 

3. Truest and deepest repentance, 

414. 

RESURRECTION, THE. 

1. The matchless change at the resur- 
rection, 415. 

RICHES. 

1. The mean between riches and 

poverty, 416. 

2. Danger and deceitful influence of 

riches, 417. 

3. Earthly and heavenly riches, 418. 

4. Very unfortunate for some men to 

be wealthy, 419. 

RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. 
1. Imputed righteousness of Christ, 
420. 



INDEX. 



195 



2. The robe of Jesus' righteousness, 

421. 

3. A spotless robe of righteousness, 

422. 

EIGHTEOUSNESS, MAN'S. 

1. Man's righteousness filthy rags, 
423. 

ROMANISM. 

1. Vatican-made deities, 424. 

2. The idolatry of Eomanism, 425. 

3. Salvation by works Rome's princi- 

ple, 426. 

SALVATION. 

1. The inestimable value of the gos- 

pel salvation, 427. 

2. The sacrifices at which salvation 

was obtained, 428. 

3. Its perfect character, 429. 

4. The pivot on which salvation 

turns, 430. 

5. Effort required on our part, 431. 

6. Salvation free to all, 432. 

7. Putting off salvation, 433, 434. 

8. God is mighty to save, 435. 

9. Seeking salvation, 436. 

10. The source of salvation, 437. 

11. The infatuation of rejecting salva- 

tion, 438. 

12. God glorifying himself in saving 

man, 439. 

13. "Work out your salvation, 440. 

14. No one need despair of salvation, 

441. 

15. Holiness not a prerequisite to go- 

ing to Christ, 442. 

16. A saving word, 443. 

SANCTIFICATION. 

1. The Christian an example of grad- 
ual development, 444. 

SATAN. 

1. Satan's defiance and defeat, 445. 

2. Triumph and defeat of Satan, 446. 

3. How Satan is overcome, 447. 

4. Tempts us when distressed, 448. 

5. Emblems of Satan, 449. 



6. A sleepless and ceaseless adversary, 

450. 
. 7. Types of Satan, 451. 

SCIENCE. 

1. The infidel's attack from physical 

science, 452. 

2. Using the facts of science to 

undermine religion, 453. 

3. Science confirming the Bible ac- 

count of the destruction of the 
world, 454. 

4. Credulity of scientific men, 455, 

456. 

5. The Nilotic brick demolishing 

Moses, 457. 

6. Modern science and Moses, 458. 

7. Science dismisses all Adams but 

one, 459, 460. 

SERVANTS. 

1. Servants honored, 461. 

SIN. 

1. Glozing over sin, 462. 

2. A life-long battle with sin, 463. 

3. The sum of our sins, 464. 

4. Proneness of even Christians to 

sin, 465. 

5. Guard against the beginning of 

sin, 466. 

6. God's abhorrence of sin, 467. 

7. Sin and suffering, 468. 

8. Nothing so easy as to sin, 469. 

9. Dying to sin, 470. 

10. Sin is a heart disease, 471. 

11. The saint not free from sin, 472. 

12. Sin the greatest folly, 473. 

13. Your sin will find you out, 474. 

14. Returning to sin is treading Jesus 

under foot, 475. 

SINNERS. 

1. Condition of the alarmed sinner, 

476. 

2. All have sinned. 477. 

3. A sinner's duty and prayer, 478. 

4. Insensibility of the sinner, 479. 

5. The sinner beside himself, 480. 

6. Sure help for the sinner, 481. 

7. Conscience condemns us as guilty, 

482. 



L9G 



INDEX. 



8. The blood of Christ avails for the i VICE. 

greatest sinners, 483. ' L what a life of vice resem bles, 495. 

2. Vice becomes a punishment aria 
a torment, 496. 



9. One way in which the wicked 
serve God, 484. 



SYMPATHY. 

1. The strongfellow-feelingof human 
hearts, 485. 



TEMPERANCE. 

1. Abstinence from intoxicating 
drinks, 486. 

TEMPER. 

1. The unhappy temper of some 
pious men, 487. 

TEMPTATION. 

1. Sudden temptation overcoming 

the Christian, 488. 

2. Stand in fear of temptation, 489. I 

3. Yielding to temptation on small 

occasions, 490, 491. 

UNIFORMITY. 

1. Unnatural attempts at uniformity, 

492. 

2. Uniformity is but the shadow of 

unity, 493. 

3. An uninteresting uniformity for- 

eign to nature, 494. 



WORLD, THE. 

1. Getting sick of the world, 497. 

2. Why the world is preserved, 498. 

3. The world should be turned up- 

side down, 499. 

WORLD, THE (EARTH). 

1. A grand destiny awaits the world, 
500. 

WORKS OF GOD. 

1. God's works reveal his power, 501. 

2. Unapproachable excellence in 

God's works, 502. 

3. God's works infinitely surpass 

man's, 503. 

WOMAN. 

1. More religion among women th. 

men, 504. 

2. Holy heroism of Christian women, 

505. 

3. Religion owes mostto woman, 506. 

4. Woman owes much to the huinan- 

izing influences of Christianity, 
507. 



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inake sturJier efforts in Christ's uame. . . . The 
prayers which accompany them are remarkable 
for tenderness and power." 

The St. Louis Presbyterian says : " The reader 
will find much to delight, much to instruct, much 
to edify." 

The Syracuse Northern Christian Advocate says: 
"For richness, originality and vividness of thought, 
ani for force of expression, these sermons are not 
surpassed by any in the English language." 



with h:ly fire, and they are inspirational alike to 
intellect, conscience and heart, it is pre-eminently 
a book for preachers. We pity the Christian who 
is not stimulated and helped by this volume, placed 
so easily within the reach of all. The volum ) has 
interested us beyond measure at times ; it has 
thrilled us with vital convictions of truth, and, at 
the last page, like ' Oliver Twist,' we want more." 
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They rouse the reader to taie fresh courage and 

Through the Prison to the Throne. 

Through the Prison to the Throne. Illustrations of Life from the Biography of 
Joseph. By Rev. Joseph S. Van Dyke, author of "Popery tne Foe of the Church 
and of the Republic." l6mo, cloth, 254 pp., $1.00. 

The Treasury of David. 

By Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon. 8vo, Cloth. Price per volume, $2.00. 

Spurgeoris Authorization.— " Messrs. I. K. Funk & Co. have entered into an arrange- 
ment with me to reprint The Treasury of David in the United States. I have every 
confidence in them that they will issue it correctly and worthily. It has been the great 
literary work of my life, and I trust it will be as kindly received in America as in Eng- 
land. I wish for Messrs. Funk success in a venture which must involve a great risk 
and much outhv. "C. H. Spurgeon." 

Dec. 8, 1881". 

Date of Issue. — Volume I., issued February 28th; Volume II., April 28th; Volume 
III., June 28, and one volume about every two months thereafter. 



Philip Schrff, D.D., the Eminent Commentator and 
the President of the American Bible Revision Commit- 
tee, says: " The most important and practical work 
of the age on the Psalter is ' The Treasury of 
David,' by Charles H. Spurgeon. It is full of the 
force and genius of this celebrated preacher, and 
rich in selections from the entire range of litera- 
ture." 

William M. Taylor, D.D., New York, says: "In 
the exposition of the heart 'The Treasury of 
David' is sui generis, rich in experience and pre-emi- 
nently devotional. The exposition is always fresh. 
To ihe preacher it is especially suggestive." 

John Hall, D.D., New York, says: " There are two 
questions that must interest every expositor of the 
Divine Word. What does a particular passage 
mean, and to what use is it to be applied in public 
teaching? In the department of the latter Mr. 
Spurgeoa's great work on the Psalms is without an 
equal. Eminently practicil in his own teaching, 
he h is collected in these volumes the best thoughts 
of the best minds on the Psalter, and especially 
of that great body loosely grouped together as the 
Puritan divines. I am neartily glad that by ar- 
rangements, satisfactory to all concerned, the 
Messrs. Funk & Co. ara about to bring this great 
work within the reach of ministers everywhere, as 
the English edition is necessarily expensive. I 
wish the highest success to the enterprise." 

William Ormiston, D.D., Nev York, says: "I con- 
sider ' The Treasury of David ' a work of surpass- 
ing excellence, of inestimable value to every stu- 
dent of the Psalter. It will prove a standard work 

Van Doren's Commentary. 



on thePsalms for all time. The instructive intro 
ductions, the racy original expositions, the numer- 
ous quaint illustrations gathered from wide and 
varied fields, and the suggestive sermonic l-i'ta, 
render the volumes invaluable to all preacner. 1 -, nd 
indispensable to every minister's library. All -j-'j 
delight inreading the Psalms — and what Christ an. 
does not ? — will prize this work. It is a rich cyclo- 
paedia of the literature of these ancient odes." 

Theo. L. Cuyler, D.D., Brooklyn, says: " I have 
us 3d Mr. Spurgeon s 'Treasury of David' for 
three years, and found it worthy of its name. 
Whoso goeth in there will find 'rich spoils.' At 
both my visits to Mr. S. he spoke with much en- 
thusiasm of this undertaking as one of his favorite 
methods of enriching himself and others." 

Jesse B. Thomas, D.D., Brooklyn, says: "I have 
the highest conception of the sterling worth of all 
Mr. Spurgeon's publications, and I iucline to re- 
gard his ' Treasury of David' as having received 
more of his loving labor than any other. I regard 
its publication at a lower price a3 a great service 
to American Bible Students." 

W.H. Van Doren. D.D., the Author of the "Sug- 
gestive Commentary," says : " A life work of the 
Prince oj Preachers. No minister of the Church of 
Christ for 1300 years has drawn and held such a 
number of h jarers so long. If the secret of his 
power is here revealed, it will be a Treasury, price- 
less in value, for centuries to come." 

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher say s : "Whatever comes 
from Spurgeon is presumptively good." 



A Suggestive Commentary on Luke, with Critical and Homiletical Notes. By W. 
H. Van Doren, D.D. Edited by Prof. James Kernahan, London. 4 vols., paper, 
1104 pp. (Standard Series, octavo, Nos. 54-57), $3.00; 2 vote., 8vo, cloth, $3.75. 



Spurgeon says: 
letic hints " 



It teems and swarms with homi ■ 



Canon Ryle says : " It supplies an astonishing 
amount of thought and criticism." 



Bishop Clieeny says : " I know of no volume in my 
library I could not consent to spare sooner." 

Dr. Cx'tver says : " It is the best mullum in parvo 
I have ever seen." 



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12. The Sheep before the Shearers. 



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13 



THE PRACTICAL CYCLOPEDIA OF QUOTATIONS. 

i 7,000 Quotations— 50,000 Lines of Concordance. 

A MOST VALUABLE REFERENCE BOOK. 



What Representative Men Say: 



Hon. Samuel J. Randall, Ex-Speaker 
of the House of Representatives, 
writes from Washington under 
date of January 7 : 

" Enclosed find check for copy of ' Cyclo- 
paedia of Quotations.' I am much pleased 
with it. I consider it the hest book of quo- 
tations which I have seen." 

Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, M. C, writes :— 

" In relation to the ' Cyclopaedia of Quota- 
tions,' I desire to express my sincere thanks 
to you and to the authors of this admirable 
publication. The labor bestowed must have 
been immense, and the resultis a work indis- 
pensable to authors, scholars and speakers. 
The completeness of the indices is simply 
astonishing ; and altogether the design is so 
well executed as to leave nothing to be de- 
sired on the part of those who may have 
occasion to find or verify a quotation. And 
who is there who has not such need ? " 

New York, Jan. 3, 1882. 

Mr. Jas. E. Harvey, Private Secretary 
of Vice-President Davis, writes :— 

"At the request of Judge Davis, I have 
examined the plan of the 'Cyclopaedia of 
Quotations,' and have practically tested its 
merits by reference to original authorities. 
It is admirably organized and fills a void long 
felt by professional and public men, and even 
by those engaged in literature. Such pains- 
taking and precise work as this book exnibits 
on every page, fairly entitles it to large suc- 
cess." 

Vice-President's Chamber, Washington, Jan. 
4, 1882. 

Maj.-Gen. George B. McClellan writes:— 

" It is the most perfect work of the kind I 
have yet met with, and I confidently recom- 
mend it as a book that should be in every 
private and public library." 

Hon. Oeo. F. Edmunds, U. S. Senator, 
writes: — 

" An inspection of your ' Cyclopaedia of 
Quotations^ satisfies me that it is the most 
complete and best work of the kind with 
which I am acquainted. The arrangement 
and classification are admirable, and the 
book constitutes a rich treasury of gems 
gathered from many fields of literature. It 
deserves a place on every library table." 

Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C, Jan. 
5, 1882. 

Henry W. Longfellow writes from 
Boston:— 

"I shall often read and enjoy this ' Cyclo- 
paedia of Quotations. ' I am glad to see that 
it is so thoroughly furnished with indexes of 
authors and subjects. It can hardly fail to 
be a very successful and favorite volume. ' 

George William Curtis writes :— 

" I congratulate the authors and publishers 



on the happy completion of a work which 
must have cost a great deal of labor. It m a 
handsome volume. * * Am sure to find it a 
most serviceable companion." 

Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., President 
of Yale College, writes:— 

"I shall value the book for its own worth, 
and am confident it will be a help and pleas- 
ure to many." 

Gen. Winfield S. Hancock writes :— 

" It is a work carefully and intelligently 
compiled, and of great practical use." 

Gova-nor's Island, New York Harbor, Jan,. 
6, 1882. 

Gen. Stewart L. Woodford writes:— 

"It seems to me the most complete and 
accurate work of the kind I have ever seen. 
Such a book is almost invaluable." 

Office of the U. S. Attorney, New York, Jan. 
6, 1882. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes writes from 
Boston, Mass.: 

"It is a very handsome and immensely 
laborious work; has cost years to make it. 
* * I shall let it lie near my open diction- 
aries. * * It is a massive and teeming vol- 



Wendell Phillips writes: 

"It seems to contain almost everything 
one can need, or wish, of fine and striking 
and valuable thought in English and other 
tongues. * * It is of rare value to the 
scholar, and to those who have not had an 
opportunity to become such." 

Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., writes:— 

" A most valuable adjunct to the reading- 
table and writing-desk. It is elaborately 
and judiciously prepared/' 

George Washington Childs, Editor oi 
the Philadelphia Ledger, writes : 

" I send you $20.00 for your 'Cyclopaedia of 
Quotations.' " He also encloses a notice of 
the work from his paper from which we quote : 
"This is unique among books of quotations. 

. . . It is impossible to give a full idea 
of this rich store-house, except to say that 
ato 



any one who dips into it will 

place for it among his well-choaen books." 

Hon. Rev. J. Hyatt Smith, Member of 
Congress, writes: 

" It is a monument of labor and taste. . . 
The book has the first place in my library 
this side the Bible and Cruden." 

Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Sec- 
retary of State, Washington, writes: 

" The authors have overcome the difficul- 
ties in the way of producing a book of useful 



and interesting reference which goes over 
new ground in a new way. Am much pleased 
with it." 

J.H.Rylance, D.D., writes Jan. 13th.; 

"I have carefully looked through and 
tested the 'Cyclopaedia of Practical Quota- 
tions' as a book of reference, and am thank- 
ful to have lound it so thoroughly reliable. 
It is the best bit of work of the kind that I 
know. It will henceforth be to me a friend 
always at hand. Such helps are increasingly 
needed as the treasures of literature grow, 
and as the demands upon a man's time mul- 
tiply." 

What tne Press in America say: 
From New York "Herald," Jan. 2 — 

"This is by long odds the best book of quo- 
tations in existence, and it may for usefulness 
be placed beside such works of patient 
labor as Mary Cowden Clarke's Concordance 
to Shakespeare. Indeed, it is the much more 
meritorious as a labor, in that it needed a 
thorough ransacking of the authors using the 
English language for the finding of its ma- 
terial, although many compilers had broken 
the ground. The joint authors, J. K. Hoyt 
and Anna L. Ward, are Americans, and Mr. 
Hoyt is a journalist. We offer them our con- 
gratulations on the taste, research and in- 
genuity they have displayed. The general 
idea of a book of quotations is that it is an 
easy means for the unlearned to put on the 
varnish of erudition; for the pretentious to 
keep up their priggishness; for the writer with 
poverty of wit to set the gems of genius in 
his work. Another aspect of its use is that 
its gems ot speech, if fairly set, are always 
welcome. There is a difference, too, between 
robbing the cradle and the grave of literature 
for phrases between quotation marks, and 
acknowledging by them that what has teen 
so well said cannot be bettered in form by 
the writer or speaker. It may, however, be 
fra .kly admitted that much quotation is van- 
ity or affectation. A book like the one we 
have been perusing is nevertheless distinctly 
valuable in furnishing the man with a phrase 
noating in his mind the exact language of the 
phrase. It is not pretended by the authors 
that every quotable phrase in'the language 
has been culled, but a pretty thorough over- 
hauling of its contents has shown that without 
being periect in this respect it is wonderfully 
full. The headings are generally well chosen, 
though occasionally a cross reference to kin- 
dred headings would have been an advantage. 
The list of authors is formidable, and the 
numerical strength of selections from them 
fairly represents their standing. To the con- 
cordance of English quotations, we give our 
warmest approval. There, indeed, will be 
found the work's greatest usefulness to the 
man of letters. The greatest care has been 
taken in the indexing, and all quotations are 
not only properly credited to the author, but 
the line, scene or stanza, and the title ot the 
work, play or poem quoted from, are given. 
The book is a large, well-printed octavo ot 
900 pages, and will at once take its place in 
well-regulated libraries. At first we were in- 
clined to resent the term, ' practical quota- 
tions,' and we are not yet reconciled to it, 
but practicability is the essence of the book's 
construction, and we only wish it had instead 
been called ' a practical cyclopaedia of quota- 
tions.'" 



From tne Daily "Journal of Com* 

merce," New York : " Messrs. I. K. Funk <5t 
Co. have sent us an advance copy of their 
' Cyclopaedia of Practical Quotations, English 
and Latin, with a Copious Appendix.' The 
work has been compiled by Mr. J. K. Hoyt, 
who was for many years managing editor of 
that excellent newspaper, the Newark Daily 
Advertiser, and Miss AnnaL. Ward, said to be 
a lady of taste and culture. Such a compila- 
tion cannot fail to be highly useful. Those 
who, like ourselves, have spent weary days 
in hunting for familiar quotations, wilf heart- 
ily appreciate the work, calculated, as it is, 
to abbreviate such wearisome labors ; while 
those who wish a pleasant companion for a 
leisure hour will find ample entertainment in 
its crowded pages. It has a very copious in- 
dex, on which a vast amount of work has been 
expended to render the contents of the book 
available at once to the busy student. It is 
a whole library in itself, and those whose 
means will not allow them to accumulate 
many books, or who have not time to consult 
them in detail, will find this condensed sum- 
mary of so many notable things worthy of re- 
cord, a most vaiuable treasure." 

From the Boston " Globe," Jan. 8. 

"One of the most valuable books of the 
time is the comprehensive 'Cyclopaedia of 
Practical Quotations,' by J. K. Hoyt and 
Anna L. Ward, and published in attractive 
style by the New York firm of I. K. Funk & 
Co. There are over 17,000 quotations, in- 
cluding many not included in previous com- 
pilations, and unusual care has been shown 
in making them strictly accurate, as well as 
in giving the authorship, where that was as- 
certainable. An admirable system of classi- 
fication has been adopted, there being nearly 
a thousand subject-heads ; and by the full 
concordance, which forms such a valuable 
feature of this book, every one of these quo* 
tations is made readily available. The sub- 
divisions of the Cyclopaedia will commend 
themselves to every reader. Special mention 
seems to be called for regarding such char- 
acteristic features of this book as the collec- 
tion ot nearly 2,000 quotations from the Latin, 
the list of proverbs and familiar sayings in 
French, German, Italian and other "modern 
languages ; the department of Latin law 
terms, which is particularly valuable ; and 
a biographical dictionary of the names of the 
1,200 authors quoted in this work. In all 
respects the Cyclopaedia, with its 900 pages, 
is worthy to be accounted as one of the great 
publications of the day. A monument of in- 
dustry and well-directed work, marked by 
thorough system, this ' Cyclopaedia of Prac- 
tical Quotations ' must at once take its place 
among the few really standard books— a vol- 
ume indispensable to the man of letters, and 
one which should be in the library of every 
reader." 

From the "Christian Union," New 

York : "The ' Cyclopaedia of Practical Quota- 
tions,' prepared by J. K. Hoyt and Anna L. 
Ward, and published by I. K. Funk & Co., 
will prove a valuable publication. To any 
person who has ever needed its aid the ordi- 
nary dictionary of quotations is a grief of 
heart and a vexation. What you want you 
never can find, and what you do not want is 
perpetually presenting itself. Moreover, such 
collections are usually ill-digested and worse 



edited, and of no earthly good when you call 
upon them. We can except from this verdict 
Mr. damage's ' Beautiful Thoughts ' series ; 
but these are too fine to be popular. What 
the people want, and what the student and 
the professional man and the literary man all 
want, is a working cyclopaedia — and here it is, 
at last. 

" Opening the pages at random, we strike 
the gloomy, but important, topic, 'Death,' and 
discover fourteen columns given to this 
alone, and the authors' names arranged alpha- 
betically; while each quotation on the double- 
columned octavo pages is distinguished 
by an italic letter for the sake of easy refer- 
ence. Some departments, such as 'Trees,' 
'Flowers,' 'Birds,' 'Occupations,' 'Months,' 
'Seasons,' «tc, have also sub-heads, and quo- 
tations are classified, for greater convenience, 
under them. In things like these there is 
hardly an improvement to be suggested. It 
is quite the same, too, when we observe the 
character and scope of the Latin extracts, of 
which there are in the neighborhood of two 
thousand, including law and ecclesiastical 
terms, proverbs and mottoes. But the high- 
est praise we can bestow we are readv to 
give to the ' concordance ' by which the Eng- 
lish quotations are rendered, available. 

"If we descended to a certain small and 
hypercritical style of investigation we could 
probably find a few faults, such as the au- 
thors themselves will probably discover and 
correct in a later edition. No great work is 
free from occasional blemishes, and we have 
observed some ourselves, which we might 
certainly take the liberty to note. But such 
a vast piece of labor, involving both skill and 
judgment, and covering more than nine hun- 
dred pages, invites and even challenges a 
broad and fair discussion of its merits and 
defects. The former are all summed up, to 
our mind, in two words : convenience and 
usefulness. It nearly supersedes Mrs. Cow- 
den Clarke's ' Concordance to Shakespeare ' 
for practical utility. And the compilations 
of Allibone (over which we have often grown 
wrathy enough) and Bartlett (which it drains 
to the dregs) are quite out of competition. 

"On the whole, we rejoice over this book. 
We shall no longer beat over half of creation 
for an elusive quotation. We shall be greatly 
preserved from a desire to employ what 
Bishop Coxe happily styled ' an appropriate 
form of words by which Christian people 
might suitably express themselves on occa- 
sions of great spiritual provocation.' If we 
misquote the bishop's language ourselves, 
we do it unintentionally, and we know he will 
set us right. He might, perhaps, furnish a 
certified copy for the second edition of the 
' Cyclopaedia.' 

"It remains that we should add that in this 
heavy undertaking Messrs. Funk & Co. have 
shown good typographical taste and judg- 
ment, and have put the book on excellent pa- 
per, and in a durable and neat binding, and 
offer it at a moderate price. The defects 
which a smaller style of criticism may dis- 
cover will doubtless be promptly remedied, 
but for the scope and usefulness of the work 
itself we have most hearty and unqualified 
approbation. Especially, too, because our 
American authors are so largely repre- 
sented." 

From the Daily " Times," New York : 

"If this new competitor with the established 
books of quotations had no better feature to 



| recommend it, the elaboration of its index 
would place it before others of the kind. The 
main index is, in fact, a concordance, and 
occupies more than two hundred large octavo 
pages of close print. It is followed by a con- 
cordance to the English translations of the 
Latin quotations, the list of which is very 
large. The Latin quotations have their own 
index. There are also topical indexes for 
the English and the Latin subjects; an alpha- 
betical register of the authors quoted ; a list 
of ecclesiastical terms and definitions ; an- 
other of Latin law terms and phrases in com- 
mon use ; a compilation of Latin, French, 
Spanish, Portuguese and other proverbs and 
mottoes. Under the title of ' Unclassified 
Quotations ' are ranged many short sayings 
of noted authors in the order of their initial 
letters. Naturally enough, the very purpose 
for which such books are compiled is defeated 
if the reader cannot turn readily to the quo- 
tation wanted. Half the use of cyclouaediaa 
of quotations comes from the need of some 
work of reference which shall render exactly 
the floating memory of the phrase. Some 
little clue is lurking in the mind, the general 
bearing of the desired sentence is known 
but the conscientious quoter wants to quote 
rightly or not at all. Hence the value of in- 
dexing after this fashion, where it needs 
only a slight clue to lead the eye to the de- 
sired quotation. Moreover, when found thia 
compilation gives a further clue to the where- 
abouts of the context, which may, after all, 
be the object in view. An editor's claim that 
the grouping of certain prominent objects, 
like those under 'Birds,' 'Flowers' or 'Trees,' 
is novel. ' Not a line,' they assert, has been 
knowingly added merely to* expand the book. 
The elaborate indexes are secondary to the 
general alphabetical plan on which the sub- 
jects are arranged, and under each subject 
the quotations stand alphabetically, according 
to the name of the author. An ingenious sys- 
tem of small letters indicates the quarter of 
the double-columned page in which the quo- 
tation stands," 

From the Boston "Post," Jan. 10. 

"The entire reading public, but more es- 
pecially the great army of students and 
literary workers, will hail this volume with 
undisguised satisfaction, for it is a boon to 
them that they have time out of mind longed 
for in vain. * * * Is a monument of in- 
dustry, research and learning. * * * The 
book is indexed in the most superior manner, 
both according to topics and by a concord- 
ance to the English quotations. The magni- 
tude of the work which has been done in the 
compilation of this cyclopaedia impresses one 
at the very outset, and the authors have every 
reason to be proud of what they have jointly 
accomplished. Mr. Hoyt is a trained journal- 
ist, having been managing editor of the 
Newark Daily Advertiser for many years, and 
the arrangement of the book and all its 
methods show a thorough understanding of 
the needs of those for whom it is intended. 
Miss Ward is said to be a lady of exception- 
ally fine culture and literary taste, and of 
this the work gives good evidence. For con- 
venience and usefulness the work cannot, to 
our mind, be surpassed, and it must long re- 
main the standard among its kind, ranking 
side by side with, and being equally indis° 
pensable in every well-ordered library, as 
Worcester's or Webster's dictionary, Eoget's 
Thesaurus, and Crabb's Synonyms. 



Enthusiastic Comments from the Advance 
Subscribers. 

valuable. Compilers' work thoroughly done." Arch- 
ibald Gunn, Windsor, N. S. 
Can find the stolen scraps. — "They have 
a great feast of languages and stolen the sciaps, 



Concordance brings every quotation 
under tlie eye at once.— *' Valuable to any 
public speaker — its range ofsubjecisis extensive, and the 
complete concordance brings every quoiation under 
the eye at once." — Geo. H. Brown, Cherokee, La. 

Treasury of Information. — "Your literary 
friends owe you a debt of gratitude for such a treasury 
of information so thoroughly digested, and yet admir- 
ably indexed."— R. F. Bunting, Galveston, 1 exas. 

" All that my fancy painted it."— W. 
G. Puddeford, White Clouds, Mich. 

Surprised at the size and quality.— 
"Am surprised at the size, extent of quotations and 
their quality." — Rev. W. K. Smith, Atlanta, Ga. 

An excellent work.-" An excellent work. 
Am well satisfied." — S. Bixbv, Holland, Mass. 

Never saw its equal.— "The most acceptable 
book of q'otations I ever saw." — Rev. F. J. Grimes, 
Park Hill, N. H. 

" Exactly fits a niche in my Library." 
—Henry M. Grant, Middleboro, Mass. 

Far surpasses anything of the kird. 
— " Far surpasses anything of the kind 1 have ever 
seen." — I. B. Banker, Morgan Park, 111. 

Remarkably iow in price.— " It is what 
you claimed for it, and remarkably cheap at that." — 
F. B. Haule, Holyoke, Mass. 

The help needed.— "It is in a line where I have 
need of help."— Fayette Hurd, Laingsburg, Mich. 

Without a peer. — "A work of very great 
merit, and is without a peer."— Jesse F. Sharpe, 
Newburg.N. Y. 

" V book of great value."— F. G. Claris, 
Gloucester, Mass. 

Well-chosen compilation —"A splendid 
re-inforcement to any man's library — a comprehensive, 
wide-scoped,well-chosen compilation." — G. G. Baker, 
Baltimore. 

It has the pithy sentences speaker* 
need. — •' My highest expectations have been realized. 
It is the short, pithy sentences that the speaker needs, 
and not the long-drawn, though very ornate, "illustra- 
tion."— Rev. I. M. Fuet.Jr., Staunton, Va. 

Beyond comparison the best.—" Far 
urpasses my expectations, and is, beyond comparison, 
the best work of its kind I have ever seen."— Rev. E. 
R. Eschbach, D. D., Frederic, Md. 

Exceeds highest, expectations.— " Ex- 
ceeds my high est expectations." — C. Price, Harris- 
burg, Pa. 

Far surpasses our promises.—" Far sur- 
passes my expectations and your promises." — I. B. 
Saxton, Troy.N. Y. 

Surpasses the high reputation our 
house led him to expect.— •' Knowing the 
reputation of your house, I was prepared to see in the 
•Quotations' a first-class work. But I must confess 
that it far exceeds my expectations." — I. M. Hamp- 
ton, St. Louis, Mo. 

Superior to -what he anticipated.— 
" Much superior to what I anticipated. Contents 1 



is true with regard to the book. And the beauty of it 
is, that you can find the 'scrarjs' by the exjellent in- 
dexes."— Peter Lindsay, Seneca Falls, N. Y. 

A masterpiece in English literature.— 
" A work of superior merit, a masterpiece in English 
literature. The best work of the kind ever issued fr^m 
the American press." — Chas. M Cain, Clarksville.Va 
Scholarship, research and tact.— 
" Scholarship, research and tact, have combined to 
produce a work of rare worth."— I. W. Olewine 
Manor Neill, Pa. 

Never saw its equal — " Have never seen 
anything to equal it in arrangement and quality of 
quotations." — £'. Albert, Teacher of Mathematics in 
the MillersviLe, Pa., State Normal School. 

Most brilliant gems of literature. — 
" The quotations cover a wide field with some of the 
most brilliant gems of the literature of the English and 
other languages."— I. Burnett, PinePlains, N. Y. 

Key that will unlock many treasures. 
— " It is a magnificent work, a key tha' will unlock 
many treasures of thought to the wise scribe and to the 
mit ister of discerning spirits, realms of noblest power. 
The lecturer who would succeed in both interesting 
and edifying his audience, cannot sfford to dispense 
with this most valuable work." — R. W. Jenkins, 
Boothbay. 

Its superior is not to be found in liter- 
ature. — " Reaches my highest expectations in both 
quantity and quality oi matter. I think it next to im- 
possible to find its equal, and its superior is not in anv 
field of literature. 'Ihe price is aster. ishingly low." — 
Rev. A. L. Hutchinson, Morrison, 111. 

Every literary family should have it. 
— "I am much pleased with the wide range of quota- 
tions; would recommend its presence in every familv 
inclined to literary pursuits."— S. M. L. Thickstun, 
principal of the Central University, Pella, Iowa. 

No library is complete without It. — 
"No library can be complete without it." — Rev. T. A. 
Bracken, D.D., Lebanon, ky. 

Scholars can't afford to be without it. 
— "A glance will show that no scholar can affnrd to do 
without it." — Rev. J. P. Williamson, Yankton 
Agency, Dak. Ter. 

The typography gooii for sore eyes. — 
" Its typographical appearance is beautitul, and good 
for sore eyes. lam surprised to find it so agreeable a 
bookin every respect."— Rev. F. E. Kittredge, State 
Missionary of the Michigan Unitarian Conference. 

Found authorship at once.— "Has already 
enabled me to find the authorship of two poetical quo- 
tations in common u e which no member of our society 
knew."— J. A. Hendricks, Collegeville, Mont. Co., 
Penn. 

Twenty years in want of one.— "For 
twenty years 1 have wanted a_ concordance of quota- 
tions. I immediately tested this one, with perfect suc- 
cess."— C. Huntington, Lover, Del. 



It contains every desirable quotation to be found in otber books of tbe kind, and, be- 
sides, thousands of quotations not heretofore collected. 

The Acctjbacy of all Quotations has been Carefully Vebtfted; the authorship of 
eaoh has been identified, and the place where to be found indicated. The arrange- 
ment embraces many new features, which will 

Make at once accessible every one of the 17,000 QUOTATIONS. 

Pwces: Royal 8vo, over nine hundred pages, heavy paper, in cloth binding, $5; in 
sheep, $6.50; in half morocco, $8; in full morocco, $10. 

FUNK & WACNALLS, Pulishers, 

IO and 12 Dey Street* N- Y* 



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